Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) (No. 2) BILL (By Order)

Order read for consideration of Lords Amendments.

Lords Amendments to be considered tomorrow.

DUNBARTON COUNTY COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Bill considered; to be read the Third time tomorrow.

Oral Answers to Questions — ENVIRONMENT

Housing Subsidies and Rents

Mr. Skinner: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has now completed his consultations with the local authority associations regarding housing subsidies; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress has been made with the preparation of a national system of rent rebates, in view of the prospective increases in rents.

The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Julian Amery): My consultations on the reform of housing finance, including the national scheme for rent rebates and allowances, should be concluded shortly.

Mr. Skinner: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that by delaying the statement even longer than we reasonably expected he failed to hoodwink the electors and produced 2,800 Labour gains throughout the country last week and the week before? Will he show a little courage, try a little honest government for a change and announce the proposals before the by-elections next Thursday?

Mr. Amery: No. The proposals must be discussed at every level and with the appropriate persons concerned. I will tell the House in due course the conclusions we have reached.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there must be swingeing increases in council house rents as a result of the policies of the Government—indeed, they have admitted that themselves—and, precisely because the people knew that, they gave the right hon. Gentleman and his Government their answer last Thursday? Will he take account of the local election results and rescind this wicked policy which will penalise many thousands of working-class people, with the result that wage demands will increase still further?

Mr. Amery: I do not think the hon. Gentleman is taking full account of our proposals for rent rebates and rent allowances, which may lead to certain people paying less rent than they are paying today.

Sir G. Nabarro: While dissociating myself absolutely from the preposterous statements of the hon. Members for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton), may I remind my right hon. Friend that there are millions of owner-occupiers in Britain suffering from inordinately high mortgage interest rates because whenever the Government cause Bank Rate to be reduced there is no commensurate reduction in mortgage interest rates? Will my right hon. Friend apply himself to that important aspect of housing finance?

Mr. Amery: I take my hon. Friend's point. I have applied myself to the subject. On the other hand, I understand the view of the building societies that it is more important that they should have plenty of money at current rates than not enough money at cheaper rates.

Mr. Cant: Has the right hon. Gentleman ever lived on a council house estate or near one, and has he tried to measure the consequences of driving out of council house estates old people who have an income above a certain level? Will he suggest to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment that this might be a social and environmental disaster?

Mr. Amery: I have not lived on a council estate, although I have lived in a terraced house since I was born. However, I had some experience of council housing matters, when I was the Member for part of Preston for 17 years. I do not yield to the hon. Gentleman in my experience of this subject and its problems.

Mr. Allason: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the present system whereby there are great disparities in council house rents is totally unfair? Does he not see the possibility of the very high rents charged in some places being brought down while agreeing that some of the very low rents which are charged should be increased?

Mr. Amery: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I think that our proposals will have the effect of reducing rents for those in need as well as enabling authorities in areas of stress to have more money available for clearing slums.

Mr. Denis Howell: There is an important point on the question of consultation and the promulgation of the Government's policy on rents. Since the Minister has been negotiating with the local authority associations and local authorities, the political complexion of those bodies has changed, and will change even more in the forthcoming year. Since the Minister will get different advice now, will he start his consultations again to take account of the new mood and opinion in the country?

Mr. Amery: It would not be constructive or in the public interest to go back to square one and start the talks all over again. We have negotiated in great detail, and have made considerable advances, but the talks are not yet completed. I am always ready to receive further representations, but I am not prepared to go back to square one.

Concessionary Railway Fares (Retirement Pensioners)

Mr. Robert Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will seek powers to allow the Railways Board to offer concessionary fares to retirement pensioners on social grounds across the board's administrative regional boundaries.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths): No. Sir.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that it costs my constituents £1.05p. more to travel from Aberdeen to York and back than it does for a passenger to travel from York to Aberdeen and back? Does he not agree that as this pricing policy bears heavily on old-age pensioners a method of mitigating this ridiculous pricing policy would be by a concessionary fares scheme? In the light of this, is he not prepared to reconsider his answer?

Mr. Griffiths: Pricing policy must be a matter for the Railways Board, which is required statutorily—by the Statute of the previous Government—to pay its way. Old-age pensioners' concessions are for the Railways Board, but I believe it is much better for individual assistance to come through the social security mechanism and not through the railways.

Countryside Commission (Document)

Mr. John Wells: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make the Government grant to the Countryside Commission conditional on its agreement not to publish such free documents as the Slimbridge Visitor Survey 1969.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): The precise way in which the commission disseminates the results of its work is a matter which my right hon. Friend thinks the commission should be left to decide.

Mr. Wells: Is my hon. Friend aware that this survey was a statistician's benefit, full of absolutely useless information collected for no good purpose, including such questions as "Did the visitor have a picnic?" and "Did the visitor bring his mother-in-law?" This sort of absurdity


should be removed from the governmental calendar. This is what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister meant when he said that he would get the Government off our backs. Please will my hon. Friend look at this again and get the Government off our backs?

Mr. Heseltine: I am sure my hon. Friend would agree that the need for detailed information about people using these recreational centres is important. Whilst some of the questions may be open to ridicule, the vast bulk of the questions were very relevant.

Solent (Pollution)

Mr. Judd: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will make a statement on the measures being taken by his Department to prevent further pollution of the Solent.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Walker): This is primarily a matter for the two river authorities concerned. The hon. Member may, however, like to know that the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution is proposing to visit the Southampton Waiter area shortly in connection with its general inquiry into the problems of pollution in tidal waters, estuaries and inshore seas.

Mr. Judd: I wish the commission a happy visit, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this fine stretch of water is rapidly in danger of becoming an open cess tank polluted by oil, chemicals, sewage, plastic cups and worse? Does he not agree that it is impossible for local authorities acting individually to overcome this problem, and will he not give a lead in the interests of Southampton, Portsmouth, South Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and holidaymakers?

Mr. Walker: As the hon. Gentleman will know, Hampshire County Council and the district councils concerned are considering a main drainage scheme for the central part of South Hampshire. As a result of the Government's announcement of substantially increased capital investment in sewerage, areas like this will be helped.

Transport and Environmental Studies

Mr. Dormand: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what plans he

has to establish a centre for transport and environmental studies.

Mr. Peter Walker: I am considering the matter. I have already announced that the Centre for Environmental Studies will receive an increased grant for work in these fields. I am still considering the proposal to set up a centre to provide training for transport and land use planners in the light of comments made by interested universities.

Mr. Dormand: Is the Minister aware of the great advantage which would accrue if such a centre were established in Peter-lee New Town in my constituency, particularly with the science park there? I am aware that the allocation will be made to the universities, but Newcastle and Durham Universities have already agreed that if they are appointed they would prefer the centre to be in Peterlee. Does the Minister agree that a project of this kind, which would recruit about 100 graduates a year, is precisely what is required in the interests of a structured employment balance in an old industrial area such as mine?

Mr. Walker: I am aware of the proposals made by Newcastle and Durham Universities concerning Peterlee. We have asked a number of universities throughout the country to submit their proposals. Naturally, we have to give due consideration to each of the proposals.

Mr. Adley: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that on the whole question of transport and the environment we should look again at the position of railways in urban centres and try to get away from the view that the development of railways in urban centres should be lined up with the inter-city services, which are a different thing?

Mr. Walker: Yes, we are looking at the whole distribution of warehousing, the movement of freight and other matters, including railways, in our total planning strategies.

Single Daughters and Elderly Dependants (Accommodation)

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will draw the attention of local authorities to the need for the provision


of sheltered housing for single daughters and their elderly dependants.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Paul Channon): Warden-serviced housing is intended for old people, and local authorities generally recognise the need for it. There is no reason whatever why an authority should not allocate two-bedroom housing with warden service to an elderly couple with a single daughter.

Mrs. Oppenheim: Is my hon. Friend aware that this is a very satisfactory answer? Does he not agree that the provision of such housing is highly desirable on economic and social grounds, because it enables single daughters to avoid considerable hardship by being able to work while still caring for their elderly parents in their own homes, and also saves the expense of local authorities having to maintain them in old people's homes?

Mr. Channon: I certainly agree with my hon. Friend.

Mr. Maddan: Does my hon. Friend agree that a great contribution could be made to the well-being of dependants by giving younger members of the family who are prepared to look after them at home grants for building an extra wing on the house or an annexe in the garden?

Mr. Channon: I should like to look at what my hon. Friend suggests. I think he is on a good point.

Windsor (Green Belt)

Dr. Glyn: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he is aware of the concern expressed by the electors and the Council of the Windsor Rural District that there should be no alteration of the existing Ascot Town Map which would involve use of Green Belt land for development; and whether he will undertake to support proposals to maintain the existing Green Belt in that area.

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): I am aware of local concern about pressure for development in the Ascot area. There is no proposal before my right hon. Friend to alter the existing town map. As elsewhere in the approved

metropolitan green belt, there is a strong presumption against permitting the development of green belt land except for purposes appropriate to a rural area. But my right hon. Friend cannot prejudge any decisions on individual cases which may come before him on appeal; each must be considered on its merits.

Dr. Glyn: Is my hon. Friend aware that further development in the green belt could have the effect of converting what is essentially, in his own words, a rural constituency into an urban sprawl? Secondly, is he aware that the result of circular 10/70, issued by his right hon. Friend, has been a large number of applications by developers to use green belt land quite wrongly? Finally, will he give an indication that when he is looking at the proposals before him he will bear strongly in mind the necessity of preserving the green belt, and also for having regard to the wishes of the local planning authority?

Mr. Page: Yes, Sir; one has to balance the desire for making land available for building with the protection of the green belt. Circular 10/70 emphasises the need to avoid harm to the green belt. There will be no change in our policy of allowing development in the green belt only in very special circumstances.

Motor Vehicles (International Noise Limits)

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent discussions he has had with foreign Governments about the introduction of international noise limits for motor vehicles.

The Minister for Transport Industries (Mr. John Peyton): An E.C.E. standard for vehicle noise limits already exists. I propose shortly to initiate discussions with European Governments about the possible adoption of a stricter standard.

Mr. McNair-Wilson: Is the Minister aware that a Swedish bus ordered by one municipality in Great Britain is able to achieve a noise level of 83 decibels, whereas our noise level at the moment requires only 86 decibels by 1973? Does this not make it obvious that some European countries are ahead of us, and is it not time that we caught up?

Mr. Peyton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing my attention to this desirable Swedish bus. I am well aware of the importance of this problem, and I hope that British manufacturers are in no doubt as to the seriousness with which the Government regard the need to keep down noise.

Mr. Buchan: But would the right hon. Gentleman also make sure that he tells his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry than when he considers the crazy idea of reducing tariffs on foreign cars he should also pay some attention to the decibel problems involved?

Mr. Peyton: I should have thought that hon. Gentlemen opposite are more responsible for the decibel problems involved.

Construction Contracts

Mr. Loveridge: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proportion of the construction contracts let directly by his Department is placed after competition.

Mr. Amery: 84 per cent., Sir.

Mr. Loveridge: I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he also please take further steps to ensure that all public authorities increase the proportion of works which they put out to competitive tender?

Mr. Amery: Yes, Sir. This is our general approach to the problem. My hon. Friend will realise that there are certain jobs involving security and matters of a special nature which have to be given to particular contractors, and that the Banwell Report recommended that the best solution may sometimes rule out the most competitive. By and large we pursue the view, as the figures show, that the most competitive contract is the best.

Council Tenants (House Purchase)

Mr. Tebbit: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether his Department will publish an information booklet for the benefit of council tenants on the advantages of buying their council house.

Mr. Peter Walker: I am pleased to say that many towns are already issuing booklets on this subject. I will consider my hon. Friend's suggestion.

Mr. Tebbit: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that if we are to believe the election addresses of Socialist candidates in the local council elections—which is an unwise thing to do—home ownership will take a nasty knock and that, therefore, a booklet of this sort will be greatly needed? Perhaps my right hon. Friend might even persuade some Opposition Front Bench members to write a foreword on the subject of the fair rents system which they introduced, and which we shall extend but with rebates?

Mr. Walker: I am certain that there are thousands of council tenants who would like to have further information on this subject.

Mr. Frank Allaun: Is it not a fact that only 6,396 council tenants bought their houses last year out of 5½ million such tenants? Is not the whole business a gimmick of no significance unless the Government raise council rents so high that they force tenants to buy houses that they cannot really afford?

Mr. Walker: Unfortunately, for half of last year the Labour Party was in power. I am delighted to say that since then the figures have greatly improved. I am delighted that since my announcement on new towns 12,000 new town tenants have applied to buy their own houses.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Would my right hon. Friend agree that, however few the numbers might be, they will certainly grow in the next year or two and that opportunity should be given to people to buy their council houses if they want to? Is this not a means by which one can make more housing units generally available?

Mr. Walker: Yes, Sir. I am surprised that the Labour Party wishes to deprive people from buying their own homes.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Could the Secretary of State make sure that the information makes people aware of the disadvantages as well as the advantages of buying their houses?

Mr. Walker: I shall rely on the hon. Gentleman to produce a leaflet on that subject.

House-building Programme

Mr. Rost: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on house-building progress during the first quarter of 1971.

Mr. Lane: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the trend in housing starts so far this year, compared with the same period of 1970.

Mr. Finsberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the total number of houses started in the first four months of 1971, and what was the corresponding figure for the same four months of 1970.

Mr. Amery: Figures for the first four months of this year are not yet available. In the first quarter of 1971, 70,600 houses and flats were started in Great Britain, an increase of 20½ per cent. compared with the 58,700 started in the first quarter of 1970. Completions totalled 82,100 in the first quarter of 1971, 2½ per cent. more than in the same period of 1970 when 80,000 houses and flats were completed.

Mr. Rost: Although the whole country will note with pleasure that the present Government are keeping yet another election promise—to get the house-building programme moving again after five disastrous years—would the Minister please give an assurance that he will not allow local authorities which have recently changed control to Labour to sabotage this programme by dragging their feet on house-building?

Mr. Amery: My hon. Friend can be sure that I will put the maximum pressure on local authorities, of whatever political complexion, to do what they should do to solve the housing problem.

Mr. Lane: Although the figures are encouraging, would my right hon. Friend agree that there is still much leeway to make up because of the failure of the Labour Government on this matter and also because of the great slack still to be found in the building industry? Could he confirm that the Government will be ready to take any further steps that may

be needed during this year in order to keep up the momentum of improvement?

Mr. Amery: My hon. Friend is quite right. We still have a long way to go to solve the problem in both the public and the private sectors.

Mr. Bob Brown: Is the Minister aware that when the Labour Council lost control of the City of Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1967 there were 6,000 people on the waiting lists for council houses and that today the figure is 9,000? Is he also aware that last year Newcastle built only a miserable total of 800 houses, as against 2,000-plus when the Labour Party was in power?

Mr. Amery: I observe that in the recent elections Newcastle was preeminent among the important conurbations to secure a Conservative majority.

Mr. Freeson: Is the Minister aware that one important factor which led to the switch of political control in the elections is that during the last three years of Conservative rule there has been a considerable reduction in public authority housing starts of around 40 per cent.? In regard to the present position, is he able to reveal to the House the departmental forecast, which he must himself know, of the total number of expected housing starts for 1971? Is it expected to exceed 350,000?

Mr. Amery: On the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, he will find that Labour councils did not in any sense have a better record than Conservative councils. On the second part, perhaps he would like to put down another Question.

Housing Need

Mr. Deakins: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what criteria the Government use to obtain an accurate measure of housing need in each local authority area.

Mr. Peter Walker: It is for each local housing authority to decide in the first instance what the housing needs are in its own area and what measures should be taken to meet them. I would, however, welcome a much more positive approach to analysing the problem.

Mr. Deakins: Would the right hon. Gentleman explain why his Department


takes no account of the size of council house waiting lists as being one of the most important criteria of housing need?

Mr. Walker: I think it is a fact—and all authorities have found this—that many council house waiting lists are inaccurate in two ways. First, there are many people on the lists who have no need to be on them; secondly, there are a large number of people who should be on the lists and are not. This is why I would welcome more positive house-to--house research into this problem.

Mr. Allason: In considering housing needs in the local authorities, is it not difficult to distinguish between those who would like to live in a particular place and those who must live there? Surely it is highly uneconomic to build very expensive council houses in the most desirable places when it is possible to provide such houses in other parts of the country at a lower price?

Mr. Walker: There are many difficulties in terms of analysing the housing problem. What concerns me most is that in the worst housing areas there are many people who are not on any housing list at all. This is why I hope that housing advisory centres will become a positive feature.

Mr. Molloy: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are housing lists in London containing between 5,000 and 10,000 people? Would he acknowledge that, except in the run-up to the local election period, there was a vicious politically-motivated brake put on council house building, and that as a result of the local elections millions of people will now hope for an improvement in the situation? Will he give these new authorities all the encouragement they deserve?

Mr. Walker: An analysis of the figures would not support the remarks of the hon. Gentleman.

Wolverhampton (Housing)

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many dwellings in Wolverhampton will be completed this year; and how many starts will be made this year and each of the next four years.

Mr. Channon: I would suggest that the hon. Lady should seek information on

these points from the council. It is in the best position to know the details of the local situation.

Mrs. Short: Why does the Department consistently refuse to give this kind of information when it is asked for by hon. Members? Is not it clear that it has no indication of the real housing need of the nation? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to know that at the moment there are 3,300 families on the Wolverhampton waiting list, and that the Tory-controlled council has built fewer and fewer houses each year. Furthermore, this year only 250 will be built by the local authority for letting.

Mr. Channon: The hon. Lady will appreciate that our practice follows precisely that of the previous Government, for the reasons given by my right hon. Friend a few moments ago. However, the hon. Lady will be encouraged to know that starts for the first quarter of 1971 in Wolverhampton are more than double the figure for the first quarter of last year.

Industrial Pollution

Mr. Simeons: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will indicate the action he is taking to ensure that the ability of firms in this country to compete with those overseas is not unduly handicapped when making decisions in respect of planning permissions opposed on grounds of uncertainty with regard to possible effects of pollution.

Mr. Peter Walker: The possible effect of pollution from a proposed industrial use is a material consideration which local planning authorities should take into account in considering the planning application.

Mr. Simeons: Is my right hon. Friend taking any steps to discover, through statistical information, what sort of percentage of on-costs the cost of effluent treatment is in terms of total manufacturing costs? If he is not, will he look into this matter?

Mr. Walker: These figures are impossible to obtain. There are many factors involved such as planning, the siting of industry, and so on. However, the public are demanding better standards of cleanliness in terms of production.

Mr. Arthur Jones: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what records are maintained of accidental leaks or spillages of toxic or poisonous materials from industrial or commercial concerns, which result in pollution of water courses; and how many such accidents have occurred in the past five years.

Mr. Peter Walker: Such records are maintained by river authorities in order to administer the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Acts. In response to inquiries by their association, 23 of them have reported about 750 accidents in the 18 months ended last December, oil being the substance most often involved. Thanks in large part to prompt action by the river authority, fire service or firm concerned, pollution was prevented or contained in many of these cases.

Mr. Jones: Is the Secretary of State satisfied about the level of penalties for those responsible for incidents of this kind, whether accidental or otherwise?

Mr. Walker: No, Sir. We are reviewing this matter.

Channel Tunnel

Mr. Sheldon: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a further statement on the Channel Tunnel.

Mr. Peyton: I shall make a further statement when it is appropriate.

Mr. Sheldon: Is the Minister aware that his Department is failing miserably to answer some very simple questions from this side of the House? Will he now answer two specific questions? The private group at present examining the possibilities of a link between this country and France is not, as I understand it, examining the possibility of a road link. Does the Minister intend to make this part of its brief? Secondly, what kind of risk is this private company undertaking when both Governments have promised to reimburse it if it decides not to go ahead?

Mr. Peyton: The hon. Gentleman is trying to simplify the matter, which is more complicated than he makes it appear.

Mr. Sheldon: Give us the facts.

Mr. Peyton: As I have said on more than one occasion in response to questions from the hon. Gentleman, the first phase of the final studies has been embarked upon. As soon as that phase yields the results expected, I shall gladly give all the relevant information to the House.
As for the hon. Gentleman's point about a road tunnel, all the evidence that we have indicates that it would not only be more costly to construct and less profitable in its returns; it would also raise very great problems of ventilation, and these are the most serious of all. They are problems which would be almost entirely absent in the case of a rail tunnel.

Mr. John Wells: Will my right hon. Friend apply his mind to the problem that affects the whole of the county of Kent arising from the uncertainty over not only the tunnel itself but the approach roads thereto? Now that his Department has announced that the third London airport is to be at Foulness, greater road uncertainties have been created in our county. Will my right hon. Friend look at the whole question of tunnels in the South-East, not only the Channel Tunnel but a Thames tunnel linking Foulness to the Continent, because we are suffering grave uncertainties throughout the county and not just in the coastal constituencies?

Mr. Peyton: I am conscious of the anxieties felt by many people in Kent. They have been voiced by my hon. Friend today and on other occasions. It is difficult wholly to allay those anxieties when one has to make proper preparations for a sensible decision. Perhaps I might call another factor to my hon. Friend's attention. If a tunnel were not built, there would also be great problems of development of other airfields, of greater port capacity, and the rest, which would equally affect Kent very seriously. However, I am conscious of the importance of what my hon. Friend has said. I was in Kent last weekend to inform myself of some of the problems.

Mrs. Renée Short: The right hon. Gentleman referred to the problems of ventilation. Is he not aware that there is a sound and valid engineering solution to the problems, and that the Dutch and


Americans have a great deal of experience in underwater building? In view of the fact that the proposals before him are outdated and that the growth in the use of the motor car has been so great since then, is not it a nonsense to build something which will not allow people to drive across? Will he look at the matter again?

Mr. Peyton: A lot of the questions that I am asked are about pollution caused by motor vehicles. It is the intensity of the problems which would be caused in a road tunnel by motor vehicles which at present has ruled out this possibility.
If I might refer back to the last point made by the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), who has so persistently questioned me on the subject, he referred to the risks. I am sure that the risks in a rail tunnel would be absolutely minimized—

Mr. Sheldon: No. Financial risks.

Mr. Peyton: I am sorry. The hon. Gentleman said "risks". I misunderstood him. I should prefer not to comment on the financial risks until the first phase of these studies is completed. If he will particularise his anxieties, I shall do my best to satisfy him.

Mr. Sheldon: I did particularise. I asked the right hon. Gentleman to examine the situation that has arisen from the joint communiqué issued by the French Transport Minister and the right hon. Gentleman, in which it is made clear that if the private group decides not to go ahead its costs will be reimbursed. What sort of risk taking is that?

Mr. Peyton: I do not wish to be unhelpful to the hon. Gentleman, but this is a complicated matter in which two Governments are involved. If he cares to put down a Question on those lines, I shall do my best to satisfy him.

Humber Bridge

Mr. McNamara: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment, whether he will now make a statement on the financing of the Humber Bridge.

Mr. Graham Page: My study is making good progress but I regret that I cannot yet make a statement.

Mr. McNamara: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the considerable concern on Humberside about the delay on this matter? Will he say when we can expect a firm answer from him and his right hon. Friends? Secondly, will he try to indicate the nature of the financial problems which are causing the delay? Thirdly, will he confirm that it is his Government's intention to start the bridge in 1972 and complete it in 1976, as was the intention of the previous Administration?

Mr. Page: I know the anxiety of the Humber Bridge Board to commence work in 1972, and I hope that we shall be able to do that. The traffic flows have to be studied, since on them will depend the repayment of any financing provided by the Government. The hon. Gentleman is right to question me about this matter. I am anxious to give a decision very soon now. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not hold me to this, but it will be only a matter of two or three weeks.

Mr. James Johnson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that hon. Members on both sides of the House will bless him if he makes a favourable decision in a week or two? Will he confirm that the Humber Bridge Board has put him in possession of all the financial and technical information that he requires to make a decision? Is he aware that his decision will represent a symbolic gesture of the Government's faith in the economic future of Humberside?

Mr. Page: The Bridge Board has been very helpful. But we want to get the financial side right. I hope to make an announcement soon, but I want to get it right before I make the announcement.

Aviation Sports Organisations (International Competitions)

Mr. Spearing: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has recently received from national aviation sports organisations concerning the level of Government assistance for the expenses of representative teams in international competitions.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: None, Sir, though I have received a request for a subsidy for administration costs incurred over aerobatic championships held last July.

Mr. Spearing: I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he confirm that whilst he has increased the grant to voluntary sports associations for overseas compotition by approximately 50 per cent., he has, as late as 20th April, reduced the grant which he will give from 66 to 50 per cent. for each particular team? Does he agree that giving notice as late as 20th April could cause disruption in the sending of amateur teams abroad?

Mr. Griffiths: Perhaps I may correct the hon. Gentleman. There has not been a 50 per cent. increase in the sums available to international sports groups appearing abroad; it is an increase of 60 per cent. There has been a reduction in the percentage amount available to individual teams, but the overall increase, which is the important thing, is very substantial.

Mr. Denis Howell: is the hon. Gentleman aware that in this pre-Olympics year to cut back the grant from two-thirds to a half for British teams competing abroad is deplorable? It was put up from a half to two-thirds after I consulted the British sports bodies immediately after the Mexico Olympics as to how we could prepare for the Munich Olympics next year. On their advice, the first priority was to increase the grant for overseas teams to raise their standards. This is what they did. They came forward with an increased programme of competition, acting in accordance with the wishes of the Government. Is not the Government's decision to cut back the grant from two-thirds to a half a gross breach of faith?

Mr. Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman knows a great deal more than I do about breaches of faith. There has been an increase in the sums available for the Olympic teams for the winter Olympics next year of £30,000. The amount which the hon. Gentleman made available in the last year of the Labour Administration was £75,000 in total. This year the amount made available is £168,000—more than double.

Mr. Wilkinson: Returning to the original Question, does my hon. Friend agree that a measure which could directly assist our aerobatic competitive teams, who have very stiff opposition, particu-

larly from East Germany and the Soviet Union which are heavily subsidised, would be to cut back the tax on fuel? Will he consult his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to whom I put a specific question yesterday?

Mr. Griffiths: Yes. I am always consulting my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer about tax changes for the benefit of sport.

Mr. Howell: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that sports bodies will not take kindly to that answer? When they were asked by the Sports Council and the Government to increase their programme of international participation, they did it in good faith on the basis of a two-thirds grant. In the middle of their planning in this pre-Olympics year he has cut back the grant. Having regard to the £2·8 million increase in the Arts Estimate in the same year, is not this a calamitous situation?

Mr. Griffiths: The hon. Gentleman is very bold in using phrases about calamities, about which he knows a great deal There is now substantially more money available to sports teams from this country competing abroad than ever before—double the amount the hon Gentleman made available. That is an improvement. I assure him that there will be more British athletes competing abroad this year than ever before.

Disused Railway Lines

Mr. James Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what further progress he has made in examining disposal procedure regarding disused railway lines; and what consultation he has had with interested bodies.

Mr. Graham Page: We have completed our discussions with the interested parties and will be announcing our proposals soon.

Mr. Johnson: I thank the Minister for that answer. Is it not a fact that since Dr. Beeching wielded his vicious axe more than 5,000 miles of line have been closed and that banks, once the homes of butterflies and flowers of all kinds—daisies and the like—are now becoming covered in coarse vegetation? Will he open them again for the benefit of walkers, pony riders and cyclists and do his best to save them?

Mr. Page: Yes, indeed. We are anxious to seize the opportunities offered by these lines becoming available for recreation and so on. As an ex-chairman of the Pedestrians Association, I am very keen to use them for the best possible purpose.

Mr. Cant: May I invite the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, West (Mr. James Johnson) to a much more efficient local authority, Stoke-on-Trent, which has not only acquired a high proportion of these disused railway lines from British Rail, and mineral lines, but has transformed them, with Government grants, into things of great natural beauty?

Mr. Page: I sincerely congratulate Stoke-on-Trent on its initiative. I hope that other local authorities will follow its example.

Mr. Heffer: Will the Minister draw the attention of the Liverpool and Bootle local authorities to the disused railway line which runs through my constituency into Bootle and is causing a great deal of upset to the local population because of the rubbish and so on which has been tipped on it? This could be made into a very nice pedestrian pathway. As he comes from the area, perhaps the Minister will draw the attention of those authorities to the possibilities for the use of this line.

Mr. Page: I am conscious of this matter as the line runs not only through the hon. Gentleman's constituency but right into mine.

Rural Bus Services

Mr. Hicks: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he hopes to receive the results of the pilot surveys now being undertaken concerning all aspects of the provision of bus services in rural areas; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peyton: Very soon. I shall make a statement when I have studied them.

Mr. Hicks: Will my right hon. Friend take note of the urgency of the situation? Is he aware that in the past 10 years the number of fare journeys carried by the Western and Southern Omnibus Company has fallen from 89 million to 55 million and that in Cornwall alone

14 routes have been withdrawn during the last six months? Will he give consideration to a fundamental reform of the licensing system?

Mr. Peyton: I am well aware of the importance and gravity of the problem. I shall have, and, indeed, am having, a look at the licensing system. I remind my hon. Friend that the root of the problem is the multiplication of car journeys which have simply taken away the customers from the buses.

Mr. David Steel: When the Minister is looking at the licensing system, will he bear in mind that the costs to bus operators in rural areas are unnecessarily high if they are unable, because of Ministry licensing requirements, to use the off-the-peg production mini-buses, which are cheaper than the expensive adaptations needed to meet Ministry licensing requirements?

Mr. Peyton: Yes. I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman's sensible point.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that in these surveys the fullest possible weight will be given to the problem which is rapidly increasing, particularly in the Eastern Counties, as a result of prices going up for school children in the early morning?

Mr. Peyton: Yes, Sir. Every point made by my hon. Friend will be borne in mind—though I hate using the phrase.

Mr. Ashton: Will the Minister look at those local authorities which refuse to take advantage of possible Government subsidies because they might have to spend a penny of their rates to do so? In this survey will he also look at the corporation tax which national bus companies are paying? Is he also aware that in rural districts transport is worse than at the beginning of the century?

Mr. Peyton: I shall certainly have a look at all the matters the hon. Gentleman has raised. However, I remind him that corporation tax is not my immediate responsibility.

Somerset House

Mr. Hordern: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will remove the Registrar General and his staff


to other premises, in order to allow Somerset House to be used as a national gallery for art.

Mr. Amery: I have recently visited Somerset House and my hon. Friend will appreciate that I sympathise with the suggestion. I must have regard to the practical difficulties and the cost of providing alternative accommodation for any of the Departments now housed in the building.

Mr. Hordern: I am grateful for that reply. It must be possible to use Somerset House, one of the most beautiful buildings in London, for a more useful purpose than housing the Registrar-General and the Census team. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to hold a serious review of the locations of all Government offices in London in these days of rapid communications and of rising property values?

Mr. Amery: Yes, Sir; I can give my hon. Friend a positive answer on his general question, but I am also carefully considering the whole question of Somerset House.

Floating Airport

Mr. Ford: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what study he has made of the possibility of constructing a floating airport, with all the attendant advantages, such as that being considered by the Japanese to be sited in Osaka Bay, details of which have been sent to him.

Mr. Peter Walker: My Department has studied the problem of floating aerodromes and the findings are incorporated in a Research Report issued by my Directorate of Civil Engineering in 1969. When this report was prepared it was understood that the Osaka Bay scheme had been abandoned in favour of an inland site.

Mr. Ford: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this possibility was not within the terms of reference of the Roskill Commission, that the cost of the Foulness proposal is at present incalculable, that the Osaka Bay project has been reintroduced and that, from all points of view—pollution, land acquisition and the sake of the people of North Kent and Southend—this deserves much more serious study?

Mr. Walker: I understand that the Commission was aware of the possible implications of this technique but decided to restrict its further investigations to airports constructed on reclaimed land.

Dungeness (Deep Sea Port)

Mr. Costain: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what studies he has made of the proposals for developing a deep sea port at Dungeness, details of which have been sent to him; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Peyton: I understand there have been discussions and correspondence between the sponsors and the National Ports Council. No doubt the sponsors will take into account the council's views before deciding what further studies should be undertaken.

Mr. Costain: In considering this proposition, would my right hon. Friend remember that there have been a number of collisions in the narrow Straits in the Channel and bear in mind the obvious advantages of a deep-sea port in the area which is safe for ships?

Mr. Peyton: Yes, of course I will bear in mind the facts which my hon. Friend mentions.

M1, Watford-Hemel Hempstead (Central Barriers)

Mr. Raphael Tuck: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment why, in view of his declared policy of giving priority to those stretches of motorways in greatest need and the provision of crash barriers for the central reservations, he has placed the Watford-Hemel Hempstead four-lane carriageway section of the M1 low on his list of priorities.

Mr. Graham Page: The installation of central reserve safety barriers on the Watford-Hemel Hempstead section of M1 is expected to start towards the end of next month allowing, as always, for suitable weather conditions. As the overall 1,000 mile programme of safety barrier installation will not be completed until 1975 I think I can fairly say that this section has been given a high priority.

Mr. Tuck: But as on this stretch of the Ml, known as the "killer stretch", occupying only 51 miles, 116 cars were involved in accidents in 1970, while on a stretch such as the Watford-Hendon


six-lane stretch, occupying 8 miles, there were only 57 accidents, why is this section being left one of the last to be tackled on the M1? Why does the Minister insist on flirting with death—and with other people's death?

Mr. Page: This is not left till the last. Work started at the beginning of this month on the 30½-mile section of the M1 between Scratchwood service area and Newport Pagnall service area, which includes the section named by the hon. Member in a previous question. Initial installation has begun on the more northerly part of the section to enable contractors to perfect installation procedures before starting on the rather more dfficult type of work on the two-lane section. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I use the road myself frequently and know the dangers there. We want to get on with this job quickly.

Mr. Tuck: Let us have a start now.

Mr. Longden: Is it wise to have only a four-lane carriageway on this section?

Mr. Page: We are studying whether the right process here is to widen the existing road or to lay down an entirely new road. I hope to be able to make an announcement on that very soon.

Brent (Housing Aid Centre)

Mr. Pavitt: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what answer he received from the London Borough of Brent to his invitation for a representative to attend his conference on the establishment of local advisory centres on housing problems; what is his estimate of the cost of such a centre in Brent; and how much of such cost would be met by Government loan or grant.

Mr. Amery: I invited 15 London boroughs to a conference which was held on 2nd April to discuss what immediate action could be taken following the Francis Report to ease landlord and tenant problems particularly in stress areas.
The establishment of housing aid centres was one of several matters discussed.
The London Borough of Brent indicated to me that a representative would be attending the conference, but I

understand that he was prevented from doing so by an indisposition.
The cost of a really good housing aid centre might be anything up to £25,000 for setting it up and £40,000 a year for running it, though a more modest effort would, of course, be cheaper.
Applications for a grant under the Home Office urban aid programme would be favourably considered.

Mr. Pavitt: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the cold reception which his invitation received was greatly deplored by hon. Members for that area and many of the local residents? Is he aware that since last Thursday the climate has changed, and that it is much warmer in Brent now? Will he now pursue this matter, because there is every possibility that the excellent advice which he gave to his conference might now be proceeded with in the London Borough of Brent?

Mr. Amery: I followed up the conference by writing to the 15 London boroughs concerned and asking them to send me a report within six months of what they were doing to tackle this problem. I shall look forward to seeing the report which Brent may send.

Vehicle Licensing Computer Centre, Swansea

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what separation of information on registration numbers of vehicles, and the names and addresses of their owners will be preserved at the Vehicle Licensing Computer Centre in Swansea.

Mr. Peyton: None, Sir.

Mr. Huckfield: In view of that answer, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this will give 800 police terminals connected to the national police computer instant access to the names and addresses of every vehicle-owner in the country? Is he satisfied with that situation?

Mr. Peyton: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has asked himself what the point of the register is, but one aim is to provide information which will allow the coupling, in proper circumstances, of the owner of the vehicle with the number.

Sir G. Nabarro: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that, for the sum of a few pence, any citizen may call for a search at Companies House for essential information on a company? Would it not be desirable that, at this computer centre for registration numbers of any kind of motor vehicle, for the sum of a few pence any citizen might derive essential information about any vehicle, including NAB 1?

Mr. Peyton: I feel that the ownership of NAB 1 is already adequately established in most people's minds. I also take my hon. Friend's point about the Register of Companies.

Mr. Crawshaw: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his announcement will be welcomed by some people? Is he aware that recently in the Liverpool area, after an accident involving two people, it was two days before the people were identified because they lived on their own?

Mr. Peyton: I am very much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for making that point.

Sex Supermarkets

Mr. Sutcliffe: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will introduce legislation to make sex supermarkets subject to local authority planning requirements.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: I am consulting the local authority associations in order to establish what problems are being created by the establishment of these shops. In the light of their views it should be more practicable to assess whether town planning controls should be applied to this type of development.

Mr. Sutcliffe: Is my hon. Friend aware that parents will welcome the concern which he has expressed at the growing influence of the new style, superficially respectable stores which are purveying degraded sex to impressionable young people for whom those parents have a family responsibility?

Mr. Heseltine: I am sure that my right hon. Friend was aware of this view when he decided to initiate the consultations.

Mr. Ron Lewis: Will the hon. Gentleman speed up his consultations and con-

sult the Carlisle Council, since I understand that one of these shady customers is seeking to establish one of these super sex markets there? [Laughter.] I hope that the House will take this rather more seriously, because the town clerk of Carlisle has already said that nothing can be done under the present planning law and that these people can step in and take over. Will the hon. Gentleman look into this speedily and stop this shady incident happening in my constituency?

Mr. Heseltine: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will realise that this is a very difficult matter for a town council to handle. But he will also perhaps feel it appropriate to advise his local authority to make its views known to the local authority associations, with which we are in consultation.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: In view of the confusion which was indicated in the last question, may we have an official definition of what constitutes a sex supermarket?

Mr. Heseltine: It would need to be a super definition.

Mr. Simon Mahon: Will the hon. Gentleman take this matter with the seriousness it deserves? There are many people in this country who are sick to death of this sort of activity in many ways, as they are of the interference with the privacy of many people by the Julian Press? People wonder why successive Governments have been unable to curtail this activity. Will the hon. Gentleman consult the Home Secretary as soon as possible to see what can be done?

Mr. Heseltine: I can certainly give that assurance. My right hon. Friend will be in consultation with the Home Secretary. One of the problems in considering this matter is to decide whether this is an appropriate action which comes under the heading of planning control.

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN

Civil List

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Anthony Barber) (at the bar): acquainted the House that he had a Message from Her Majesty The Queen to this House, signed by Her Majesty's own hand. And he presented the same to the House, and


it was read by Mr. SPEAKER (all Members of the House being uncovered) as follows:

ELIZABETH, R.

Her Majesty requests that consideration should be given by the House of Commons to the provision for Her Civil List made by Parliament in the first year of Her reign. Her Majesty regrets that developments in the intervening years have made that provision inadequate for the maintenance of that standard of service to Her people to which She believes they wish Her and Her family to adhere, and has commanded that the Papers necessary for a full consideration of the subject shall be laid before the House.

Her Majesty desires also that consideration be given to improving the provision then made for His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh and other members of Her family, and the provision made in the first year of Her father's reign for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and for His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester: and that provision be now made for Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Gloucester and any future wife of a younger son of Her Majesty in the event of any of them surviving her husband.

Her Majesty, being anxious to limit the burden that any new provision will impose on Her people at this time, is content to forgo the provision made by Parliament for Her Privy Purse.

In commending these several matters to Her faithful Commons, Her Majesty relies on their attachment to Her person and family to adopt such measures as may be suitable for the occasion.

18th May, 1971.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): I have to inform the House that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will move a Motion at the beginning of business tomorrow for the appointment of a Select Committee to consider Her Majesty's Message.

Mr. Harold Wilson: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intimation of a change of business tomorrow. Would he agree that the convention in these matters is that a Select Committee is comprised of representatives of the respective parties

—the right hon. Gentleman will know from the usual channels that we have made our own suggestions in the matter —and that when that Select Committee reports the House has the fullest freedom to debate its report and the evidence which has been elicited by the Committee, but that it is contrary to convention to debate the Motion to set up the Select Committee?

Mr. Whitelaw: Perhaps I will be permitted to reply. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for those comments. I hope that the procedure to be adopted tomorrow will be felt to be in the general interests of the House.

Mr. William Hamilton: rose—

Hon. Members: Sit down.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Gentleman rising on a point of order?

Mr. Hamilton: No. Am I not entitled to put a question to the Leader of the House? I simply wish to ask whether the Motion which is to be moved tomorrow will be debatable and whether the composition and terms of reference of the Select Committee will be debatable.

Mr. Whitelaw: I hope that it is in order for me to reply. Certainly the Motion will be debatable. The Leader of the Opposition, however, correctly referred to the fact that normally there is not at this stage, before the Select Committee's discussion, much of a debate in the House on the subject.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Will tomorrow's Motion include the names that have been suggested for membership of the Select Committee? If so, the House might feel that it would be abundantly desirable that any hon. Members on either side of the House who have been nominated for service on this very important Committee should not express views in advance. [Interruption.]

Mr. William Hamilton: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think we need pursue this matter further today.

Mr. Hamilton: I hope that the point made by my right hon. Friend does not go unchallenged and that nothing that has been said today will prejudice the chances of any hon. Member from debating the Motion.

Mr. Whitelaw: Perhaps I may be allowed to reply to the question asked by the Leader of the Opposition. The Motion will include the names of those hon. Members who will be suggested for service on the Select Committee.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must get on. These are interesting matters, but they are not matters for the Chair today.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mrs. Renée Short: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to raise a point in connection with the reply given to my Question No. 17 by a junior Minister. He told me to seek the information I requested from my local authority, indicating that he—

Mr. Speaker: Is the hon. Lady's point of order by way of being a complaint about the nature of the Answer that was given by the Minister?

Mrs. Short: I was about to refer to the answer that I received to a supplementary question.

Mr. Speaker: I am afraid that I cannot allow the hon. Lady to proceed with this point. The content of an answer, either to a main Question or a supplementary question, however unsatisfactory it may seem, is not a point of order for me. The Chair has absolutely no control over the content of speeches or answers, provided they are in order.

Mrs. Short: Further to my point of order—

Mr. Speaker: I have pointed out that the hon. Lady has so far not raised a matter that is a point of order.

Mrs. Short: I was really raising the principle concerned in this issue. I was not necessarily referring to the content of the reply. May I continue to address you? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]
The junior Minister concerned clearly gave the House to understand—he certainly gave me to understand—that he had no information on the subject. While that was not surprising, it turned out from his reply to my supplementary question that he in fact did have some information about numbers in connection with Wolverhampton staffs. [Interruption.]

My point of order is to ask whether it is really right for a Minister first to give a rather impertinent brush-off to an hon. Member and then to disclose that he in fact had some information that could have been divulged—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady is concerned with the content of the answer and is not raising a point of order for the Chair.

Mr. McNamara: Further to that point of order raised by my hon. Friend—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] On a point of order of my own. I would be grateful if you would direct me about the principle involved when an hon. Member asks a Question and is given an Answer which is not satisfactory and then, in reply to a supplementary question, is given an answer to the original Question that was asked. Is this not an abuse of the House and a waste of our time? Further, is it not an abuse by Ministers of their position in relation to backbenchers?

Mr. Speaker: This is a matter which the House should get clear. Repeated references have been made in the past to what have been called "bogus" points of order—

Mr. Renée Short: What about bogus answers?

Mr. Speaker: —and one of my predecessors referred to "fraudulent" points of order. Every hon. Member knows that the Chair has no responsibility for the content of answers or for what a Minister says and how he says it. These sorts of points or order are, therefore, fraudulent.

Mr. Michael Foot: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Whereas all hon. Members wish to prevent fraudulent points of order from being raised[Interruption.]—is it not a fact that it is perfectly in order for my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renee Short) or any other hon. Member to raise the question of whether Ministers in their replies are seeking to avoid their responsibilities in the sense of suggesting—[Interruption.]—that a Question has been improperly placed on the Order Paper?
Is it not a fact, therefore, that this is a matter which directly constitutes a point


of order? If a Minister persistently said in reply to Questions which had been accepted by the Chair that he would not be responsible for replying, then that would be a matter which could legitimately be raised by hon. Members in any part of the House as a point of order; and if such matters were to be excluded from being raised as points of order the Minister could escape from answering Questions which the Chair had accepted. I therefore suggest that the matter raised by my hon. Friend is a point of order.

Mr. Speaker: I will rule upon each matter as it arises. I have no doubt that in my Ruling today there was no breach of order by the Minister in the nature of his reply. I am doubtful about the general proposition that the hon. Gentleman has put forward. I will.consider it. As for today, I am satisfied with the Ruling I have made.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not a derogation of the rights of Members of the House who try to keep within the rules of order for other Members persistently to raise fraudulent points of order so as to put their point of view? Should not some means be found of protecting the rights of the majority who abide by the rules?

Mr. Speaker: I am open to suggestions on the point.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY, 18TH JUNE

Members successful in the Ballot were:

Mr. Clinton Davis.
Mr. Roger White.
Mr. Anthony Fell.

CONTEMPT OF COURT (AMENDMENT)

3.45 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the law of contempt in relation to tribunals of inquiry.
The Bill which I am seeking leave of the House to introduce has a simple but far reaching purpose. It is to enable the Press, television and radio authorities to comment on and discuss more freely than the present law would seem to allow—the present law of contempt, as the House is no doubt aware, is very vague and imprecise—the subject matters of investigation by a tribunal of inquiry.
The Bill has the most respectable antecedents. It is based, broadly, on the recommendations of the Home Office Interdepartmental Committee which was set up by the previous Government in 1968 to inquire specifically into the law of contempt as it affects tribunals of inquiry. That Committee was presided over by Lord Justice Salmon, and amongst its members were two distinguished Members of this House, the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton). I am privileged to have both of those Members as sponsors of the Bill.
The House may be aware that tribunals of inquiry which are set up under the Tribunals of Inquiry Act, 1921, do not happen every day of the week. They are rare occurrences. But when the Government of the day does see fit to set up such a high-powered tribunal they do so as a result of deep feeling and an expression of public disquiet and unease over some matter or incident which is pre-eminently of public concern and overwhelmingly of public interest. The two recent cases, which are well within the recollection of the House, in which a tribunal of this kind has been set up, were one which arose out of disquiet over the national tragedy of Aberfan, and another which arose from unease over some possible maladministration in a Government Department—the tribunal on the Vehicle and General Insurance matter.
But whatever the precise subject matter of the inquiry may be, the need for an


inquiry has invariably been high-lighted as a result of controversy, interviews, discussions, and possibly accusations, bandied about as a result of ferreting about by the Press, television or radio. It seems odd to the public that, though the matters that have received Press and television coverage have become matters of debate and discussion in every home and pub in the country, once a tribunal of inquiry has been set up to discuss just those matters the very same Press and television are prohibited from any further discussion of them.
Because of the concern felt in many quarters about the prohibitive nature of the law of contempt as it affects tribunals of inquiry, the committee of inquiry to which I alluded earlier was set up. Everyone now accepts that there is a need for a law of contempt. Obviously, if a man is on trial before a judge and jury it would be monstrous if the conduct of the trial and his chances of obtaining proper justice were prejudiced or jeopardised by things said or inferences drawn from remarks or comments made other than in the court. His case should be tried in court and nowhere else; certainly not by public opinion or in the Press. But obviously juries, being inexperienced laymen, are subject to all sorts of outside influences. Chairmen and members of tribunals or inquiry are in a different category altogether, and the Salmon Cornmittee recognised this. They are men of distinction and—without being patronising highly trained minds, men of the utmost integrity and experience, and they have been so selected only because of those qualities. It is extremely unlikely that they would be influenced or prejudiced by remarks or irrelevant matters brought up other than in the tribunal of inquiry itself. There has never been a case, to my knowledge, in which a tribunal of inquiry has been prejudiced as a result of something said or done in the Press or anywhere else.
The Bill would enable comment on general matters to be freely allowable in the Press and elsewhere. I accept, as did the Committee, that with the direct interviewing of witnesses different considerations apply. Whilst in general the influence of the interviewing of witnesses would be unlikely in any way to alter

the course of the conduct of the tribunal, obviously it would be quite wrong if members of the Press or anybody else used influence to cause a witness either to alter his evidence or to distort his evidence, or to prevent his evidence from being given. So in those cases the Bill would specifically say that contempt of court would apply; but not in any other case of interviewing witnesses.
I accept that the House will regard this as an erudite lawyers' Bill. There is nothing more likely to create a sense of inertia and disinterest in hon. Members, and indeed in the public at large, than anything that smells or savours of a lawyers' Bill. This is not a lawyers' Bill. It is a Bill of vital importance to those who want to see a more open society. It is of vital concern to all those who value and who wish to extend the area of the most valuable freedom of all, which is the freedom of speech.
The Bill would recognise that, if private matters should remain private, public matters which are pre-eminently of public concern should be aired and debated in public and there should never be a suggestion or whisper that matters on which there is a general crisis of confidence are somehow being hidden from the public. It is a matter of fact that there have seldom been suggestions in Britain attacking the integrity, intentions or motives of those who preside over tribunals of inquiry of this sort. It would be against the public interest and against the interests of justice if the public ever came to believe that things were being hidden from them which they had a right and a duty to know about.
In all these circumstances, I hope that the House will give me leave to present this very modest Bill. It does not seek to amend the law of contempt in general, although that is in urgent need of emendation. It seeks to make a significant advance in a small area of contempt.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Arthur Davidson, Sir Derek Walker-Smith, Mr. Douglas Houghton, Mr. John Grant, Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke, Mr. Clinton Davis, Mr. Antony Buck, Mr. David Steel, Mr. Tam Dalyell, Mr. William Hamling, and Mr. Ernie Money.

CONTEMPT OF COURT (AMENDMENT)

Bill to amend the law of contempt in relation to tribunals of inquiry, presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday next and to be printed. [Bill 173.]

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND (WHITE PAPER)

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the Secretary of State, I want to tell the House that I am in a serious difficulty today because many right hon. and hon. Members have written to me asking whether they can be called in the debate. No doubt many other hon. Members who wish to speak have not written to me. I have a list of between 50 and 60 hon. Members who wish to speak. I am sure that they all have strong cases on constituency grounds, for the most part, for being called. I have the disagreeable task of selection. I shall do my best to be fair. The real help the House can give me is if hon. Members will see that their speeches are short. In my view, ten minutes is ample time in which to put the kind of points mentioned in many of the letters which have been written to me. The Chair has no sanctions, but it has a memory.
I also hope that in a debate on a Motion to take note of a White Paper which has been available for some time the Front Bench speakers will try to regulate the length of their speeches so as to give the maximum opportunity for back benchers to make their points.

3.55 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Walker): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the White Paper on Local Government in England (Command Paper No. 4584).
This is the first debate on such a White Paper initiated by a Government who are at the beginning of their term of office and who have fixed a specific timetable within a Parliament to achieve that reform. It is the first such reform this century and will be one of major impact.
I want to start by saying how much hon. Members on both sides have appreciated the manner in which both elected representatives and officers in local government have endeavoured to operate our local government system over the course of the century. It is a remarkable record of thousands of our countrymen giving up their time and effort to serve their fellow citizens.
I can well understand the anxieties of those engaged in local government when


a massive reform of this nature takes place. As regards the elected members we in this House as elected representatives can appreciate how great our anxieties would be if there were a suggestion for the reform of the House of Commons which would substantially change our functions and substantially reduce our numbers.
As for those employed in local government, it is certainly the Government's intention to ensure that a proper and very respectable Staff Commission should be set up on the advice of the local authority associations with the objectives of ensuring that the position and the anxieties of the staff are fully met and that the reform of local government takes place on a basis such that the interests of those who have served local government for so long are fully considered.
There is in any system which has operated for so many years a great deal of pride in the past. In looking at the problem of local government reform, I could not have a more ideal constituency in this respect, because I represent a county borough, I have in my constituency an old and ancient borough which will disappear under my proposals, and I also have in my constituency the headquarters of a county which will be merged with another. So if I was able to make a constituency speech this afternoon it could be quite a powerful one.
The reform of local government is vital to our total approach to the modern problems facing our various communities. We have already reformed the system of central government by creating the new Department of the Environment, a reform which was acceptable to both sides. Indeed, the previous Government had similar proposals to bring in had they been returned to power. This reform of the machinery of government as affecting the local communities was correct and sensible.
Likewise, if we are to have the right machinery to implement proper policies within our communities it is vital that the machinery of local government comes up to date.
I pay tribute to the work of the very distinguished members of the Redcliffe-Maud Commission on Local Government in England for the very thorough analysis they made of the problems. The Report

was a very good and thorough one and formed the basis upon which the previous Government decided that they wished to legislate and take action.
I am therefore pleased that the distinguished people who sat on this Commission, including the Chairman, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, and Baroness Sharp, have paid a tribute to the proposals we are now bringing forward. Both of them have stated that these proposals are, in their view, sensible, radical and good. In their speeches in the House of Lords both these distinguished people gave support to our proposals and wished them every possible success.
Likewise, I draw the attention of the House to the manner in which my party has approached the problem of local government reform. Right hon. Members opposite will know that when the Maud Report was published nationwide it was certainly anything but a popular Report. All the local authority associations were against it. Almost every individual local authority was opposed to it in some way or other. It would have been easy for me, then the Shadow Minister concerned, to conduct a lively nation-wide campaign against the Maud proposals, and it would. I think, have been a popular campaign with large sections of the public, certainly with most local authorities.
We did not do that. I considered it vital, whichever party was in power, that one should look objectively at the need for local government reform and come forward with sensible suggestions. Therefore, instead of conducting such a campaign, we proceeded as a party to hold conferences in every region, we consulted our own people in local government, we consulted other experts outside our party, and we came to our conclusions not upon what we disliked about the Maud Report but upon what we as a party would wish to do.
Following those conferences and soundings in every region, in March 1970, at a Conservative Party conference on local government, I announced that our conclusion was that, while we wanted a radical reform of local government, we considered it right to proceed on the basis of two tiers, not one. I am sure that this decision will prove to be correct. A one-tier system of local government would have many advantages—I see those


advantages, in terms of efficiency and so forth—but for many of the services vital to local communities it would be too remote. I think it vital to try to ascertain those functions which of necessity have to be organised over a wider area and those functions which can be left with the more local community.
I was pleased to note that in the debate on the White Paper which has already taken place in the other House, the noble Lord summing up for the Opposition expressed the view that there were considerable advantages in the two-tier system, which, on reflection, he now supported.
This was the basis upon which we fought the last election. We put in our manifesto that we should reform local government on the basis of a two-tier system.
I do not believe that there is a party difference on this matter in the sense of a particular doctrine which separates the parties. I respect the comments already expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland), but I think that he will agree that those comments are based not upon a doctrinaire difference between the parties but upon a difference as to the most efficient and best way of reforming local government.
It was interesting to see the comments on the White Paper in the New Statesman, comments drafted, perhaps, by someone with previous experience as a Minister of Housing and Local Government. Comment was made on how
the Labour Government had already eroded the unitary principle on which the Maud report was based by extending the area which two-tier metropolitan authorities covered. Moreover, the Maud report itself recommended an unsatisfactory and insubstantial second tier of community councils with virtually no powers at all. So there is no ideological principle which separates the two parties here".
The writer of those comments said further:
Nor should the critics suspect that the whole thing is a put-up job, a gerrymander designed to subordinate the left-wing county boroughs to right-wing gentry. However true this may prove to be in particular areas, it is a silly allegation to make, especially since Labour unitary authorities would have had very much the same effect, and were put forward with reckless altruistic disregard for local political consequences. Indeed, one crumb of political comfort to be garnered from the re-emergence of the second tier is that it will

give the Labour Party a number of substantial toeholds in what would otherwise be large authorities totally dominated by the Conservatives.

Mr. Frank Allaun: I accept the truth of that, but will the right hon. Gentleman allay any suspicion there may be that there has been, or may have been, some gerrymandering in relation to future parliamentary constituencies?

Mr. Walker: I assure the hon. Gentleman at once that there has not, but I shall, if I may, deal with the total approach to this matter and touch on boundaries in a few minutes. Our first decision in approaching this matter was, as I have said, that there should be two tiers. We then had to consider the functions which would be within the two tiers and the basic boundaries. I think that there is agreement among practically all right hon. and hon. Members that there is a real need for the reform of local government. The areas at present are out-dated. I do not believe that anyone can defend the manner in which county and county borough boundaries have prevented proper planning strategies and transportation strategies developing. We have too many local authorities which are too small to employ the calibre of staff and resources needed to provide the necessary services. Moreover, a system under which we have rural districts, urban districts, boroughs, county boroughs and counties is confusing and in many ways illogical.

Mr. Dan Jones: rose—

Mr. Walker: In view of the shortage of time, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to get on. I hope that he will have his opportunity in due course.
Most people, I believe, agree that it is right to remove the uncertainty as quickly as possible and to move over to the new system of local government with the maximum possible speed. This is why I published in the White Paper a timetable. It will create a great number of pressures both for my Department and for local government, but I am delighted to see that all the local authority associations have welcomed the timetable and support the speed with which we are tackling this problem. The Labour Party


intended to legislate in 1971–72, if it was returned to power. I am anxious to see that the minimum of momentum is lost in this important reform.

Mr. Norman Pentland: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not wish the House to be under any misapprehension. Although it is true that the associations have accepted it, many individual county councillors and other councillors have protested against the timetable and hope that, even at this stage, the Minister has not closed his mind about it.

Mr. Walker: That intervention, which has taken up time, did not contradict what I said. I said that the local authority associations have approved the timetable. I do not say the same for all individual members—obviously not—but all the local authority associations have. I believe that it it would be a great disservice to local government to delay action any longer. It can hardly be right to say that local authorities have not had time to consider their views on this topic. They have done nothing else for five years but think of their views on this topic. If they cannot provide them by now, it is a remarkable state of affairs.

Mr. Dan Jones: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker. The Minister must not be allowed to put matters wrongly to the House. The county boroughs were in favour of the Maud Report.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must ask hon. Members to allow the Minister to proceed. This is a debate, and it will seriously restrict the number of hon. Members to speak if there are constant interruptions.

Mr. Walker: The White Paper was widely approved—with the exception of The Guardian— by the national Press, and I think that the summary of the attitude towards it was best expressed by the Local Government Chronicle, a week following its publication, in an editorial concluding with these words:
No reorganisation can be universally acceptable, but the need is urgent and unchallengable. The Government's proposals are sufficiently radical. Could they not now be accepted—give or take a number of modifications—by all the 'contestants'?
I believe that that is the spirit with which local government has accepted these pro-

posals. Three of the four local authority associations have approved the proposals. Here, I compliment the Association of Municipal Corporations, which, although it put forward an alternative scheme of its own and, therefore, obviously did not approve of mine, adopted a most constructive approach in entering into negotiations upon the particular matters of functions and boundaries which we are discussing with it at the present time.
As regards the negotiations themselves, there has been some criticism that a number of the Circulars which we have sent to the local authority associations have been marked "Confidential", and this has somewhat limited the debate upon certain topics. I apologise for that having been done. It was not done at any particular direction from me. It was done on the basis of the custom that, when discussions with the associations are going on about legislation, such documents are marked "Confidential" before the legislation is published. I have informed the local authorities concerned that I am very happy that all the documents which we have so far sent should be provided to any local authorities, members, Members of Parliament or anyone else interested who wishes to see them. There is no desire on my part that the contents of these documents should remain confidential. It may be that when we discuss in confidence the approach to certain detailed problems there will be a need for confidential documents, but in the main I welcome the maximum exposure on that type of detail.
I turn to the problem of boundaries. We have proposed in the White Paper the creation of six metropolitan counties and 38 new counties. We have asked local authorities to give us their views upon those boundaries by the end of the month. The views have been coming into the Department, and they will be analysed and examined. We shall carefully study the case made for changes of boundaries and shall make alterations that we consider appropriate in the light of the proposals made by the various local authorities concerned.
In drawing the boundaries, I sought wherever possible to conserve existing county boundaries. If we can keep the loyalties that exist in counties, that may be an overall advantage. It has not been possible in many cases, and many fine


county councils, particularly the West Riding of Yorkshire, will change their form under my proposals. Others, such as my own county, will have to be merged to make a reasonable and feasible size of operation. But wherever possible I have taken note of existing and historic boundaries, and I have changed them only where there appeared to be, subject to the consulations we are having, very good valid planning reasons for altering them.
I have been criticised for the way in which I have drawn the boundaries of the metropolitan areas. The right hon. Member for Grimsby has criticised me, and a number of distinguished planners join the right hon. Gentleman in that criticism. I assure him that I did this out of a desire to see that we did not draw metropolitan areas that would encourage a massive urban sprawl from the existing urban areas. I considered it right to deal with the growth problem of some of our conurbations very much more by developing our regional planning strategies, and deciding where new growth points should take place, rather than just drawing wide boundaries around the metropolitan areas, which could well have resulted in an unnecessary urban sprawl from those areas. It was an attitude of planning that made me come to that decision to draw the boundaries rather closer than they would otherwise have been.
I hope that we shall discover from the local people of the new metropolitan areas some reasonable names for them, and that names such as Selnec do not develop as a method of naming them.
We shall listen to all the proposals made to us about the boundaries, and we shall publish our legislation, which will contain the boundaries that the Government will recommend to the House on the metropolitan areas, the metropolitan district and the new counties.
We shall be setting up an independent Boundary Commission to examine the creation of the new districts within the new counties. The guidance we shall give to the Commission, which we shall discuss with the local authority associations, will be to create new districts where in the most rural areas the population will be about 40,000, while we hope that in the more urban areas it will go for a higher figure, because there are advan-

tages in having a sizeable population and rateable value in running the functions contained within the new districts. Some districts will be very much bigger than 100,000, in that we are retaining some of the major cities, and they will remain as entities with substantial populations.
Therefore, the range of new districts where we are not conserving existing sizeable cities and towns will be in the 40,000–100,000 bracket, varying in accordance with the rural nature of the district concerned.
We shall appoint members of the Boundary Commission who will be respected by all the authorities concerned, and we shall seek power in our legislation to make the Commission a permanent feature of local government, so that there is a machinery constantly to revise districts as population trends change in the decades ahead.
In accordance with our consideration of the views expressed to us by local authorities throughout the country, we will decide upon the boundaries of the new country metropolitan areas and the metropolitan districts, and the boundary commission will recommend to Parliament the boundaries for the districts. There will be an opportunity for Parliament to debate them before the Government finally make an order on what the districts should be when local government reform comes to fruition.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Is it my right hon. Friend's intention that the boundary commission should also have the power to make quite minor adjustments of county boundaries?

Mr. Walker: No, Sir. The county boundaries will be fixed after the representations that have already been made to us by the existing authorities.
The Government looked at the existing functions of local government and asked which functions need to be organised over a sizeable area with an appropriate catchment area of both population and rateable value? Where there is a necessity for such functions to be organised over a wider area, those are the functions that have been given to the new counties—education, the personal social services, highways, traffic and transportation, and —a function that I consider to be very important in terms of organising matters


much better in the future—refuse disposal. There are distinct and real advantages in having the larger wider area to deal with those functions.
In the metropolitan areas we have seen that education goes to the districts. There are differences of opinion on this topic. The Maud Report originally suggested that it should be with the district; the last Government suggested that it should go to the metropolitan areas; and we have agreed with the Maud proposal that it should go to the districts. The reason is that the districts are of a sufficient size to provide an adequate education service. That being so, we consider it important to bring it as close to the people concerned as possible. I realise the anxieties on certain forms of education that can be organised over the wider metropolitan area. There is nothing to stop that taking place under our proposals.
We have endeavoured to see that the district authorities have powers that genuinely affect the local community. One matter of dispute among those discussing the topic is where the power of housing should be. I and the Government believe it to be right to have housing at the district level, for a number of reasons. I know the argument, with the Seebohm Report and so on, that it is a good thing to have housing and social services at the same level. There are elements of housing—housing of the handicapped and the aged, and other elements—where there is a very close link between the social services and housing. But a great deal of housing is the relationship between the local authority and the tenants of its housing estates, the provision of improvement grants, the local analysis of the housing problem, and the provision of things like housing advisory centres. In the few months that I have had responsibilities for housing, I have come very much to the view that the closer we can get a community to be really anxious about the detail of its housing problem, the more progress we are likely to make. Moreover, all the experience in housing has been at district level. The former county council administration had nothing to do with housing, and had no experience of the matter. Therefore, on balance, having carefully considered the social service aspects, I considered it cor-

rect to have housing at the district council level.
Likewise, I wanted to have genuine local planning. All planning applications will go in through the district council, which will control development in its local area. I am discussing with the local authority associations the way to achieve a sensible co-ordination between the new county and the new district council. For far too long in local government if the district council has not possessed planning powers it has just resented all the decisions taken by the county; and if it has possessed those powers, it has been in constant dispute with the county view of the strategy. I hope to achieve by local government reform, by having a co-ordinated staff side in planning, to see that while local people have control over the local planning elements they will also participate genuinely in a co-operative way in the total strategy of the new county concerned.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: Fancy having planning away from building regulations.

Mr. Walker: We are discussing the question of building regulations with the local authorities. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the quick jibe, "Fancy having housing away from building regulations", does not bear examination. I suggest that before the hon. Gentleman pursues that line too enthusiastically he should inquire from those who have to impose building regulations how it can be organised. But, like all the other functions, we are discussing this in great detail with the local authority associations.
Added to the proposals for districts are all the amenity functions of the localities —the swimming pools, the museums and art galleries. These will continue to be local. Landscaping and the provision of entertainment and recreation will be organised by the district councils. Therefore, we can say to all of the district councils, "You will have a considerable volume of power, and all those powers which affect the character of your district." But, added to this, they will be participating with full representation in the new counties that will be created.
I also decided, afer consultation, that the district councils will continue to be


the rating authorities after local government reform. We intend to see that they obtain the rates from their local people and that the new counties will precept on the districts. I wish to discuss with them ways in which, in terms of providing rating assessments, it can be made even clearer than now for which authorities the rating has been obtained, because there is frequently confusion on this at present.
On the financing of local government, the right hon. Member for Grimsby has suggested that I was hostile to him because he did not publish a Green Paper prior to his proposals and that I might have provided a Green Paper prior to my own. That is a valid criticism—and the criticism I made of him was wrong. We will be publishing, within a few weeks, a Green Paper on the financing of local government. It will set out all the various alternatives of local government financing. It will look at such obvious candidates as petrol tax, motor vehicle licensing and other taxation, including the many forms of local taxation suggested in the past. It will try and set out the advantages and disadvantages of the various proposals. We will have full discussion with all concerned—doubtless there will also be debates in Parliament—and then we shall reach our conclusions as to the right mode of financing for the new authorities when they begin in April, 1974.
If we need legislation for this, we will have the 1972–73 Session in which it can be introduced, and therefore there is no need to delay our total proposals before coming to conclusions on this matter. What I have made clear is that the financing of each function shall be clearly with the districts or the new counties. One of the merits, I believe, of my proposal is that it will not be a case of top tier and bottom tier authorities, with the bottom tier pursuing policies with the permission and consent of the top tier. The functions will be clearly defined as being either with the district council or with the new county.
If the new counties wish to delegate some of their administration to some or all of the districts within their areas, they will be free to do so, but the responsibility in such cases will be with the new counties and we will not be dealing with delegated departments or organisa-

tions. The responsibility will clearly lie either with the districts or with the new counties.
There are a number of matters of great importance that we have yet to decide, and I will listen and take note of the views expressed in the debate. They are matters that we are discussing with the local authorities. They include such subjects as the frequency with which we should have elections in districts and counties and whether or not we should retain aldermen—a matter on which arguments have been put on both sides. We must also consider the nature of the complaints machinery to be operated for the public. There is need to have a better machinery for people who wish to complain about actions of their local authorities. The parliamentary machinery is not necessarily correct for local government, and we must discuss how to get an appropriate complaints system into the new machinery of local government.
There is also the difficult problem of whether councillors should have more generous allowances or be paid for the duties they perform. If we are not careful we shall find ourselves again with a system of local government in which many able people are unable to become chairmen of important committees and of important local authorities because of the financial difficulties involved. On the other hand, the voluntary system of local government has its merits. These are all matters that we must decide before legislation is published.
I want to make it clear that we are going to retain parish councils, which have provided an important function in rural areas in the past. We are open to an examination of ways in which the parish council type of system can participate in communities in more urban areas.
I want to make it clear also that we have no intention of altering in any way the provisions for London—not even after last Thursday's local election results. I make it clear that the boundaries of the Greater London area and the present position of local government in the area, which are of relatively recent creation, are not intended to be the subject of any new proposals.
There are three important features of local government reform that I want to bring to the attention of the House. First,


it is vital for both counties and county boroughs clearly to understand that these are not proposals for the old counties to take over the county boroughs. The old counties will disappear, perhaps taking many of the present county councillors with them, and we will be creating new county councils in which the existing county boroughs will for the first time have their own composite representation and will in many cases form a very considerable part of the new counties. The majority of county boroughs in the country much prefer proposals that leave them as county boroughs with very considerable powers to the proposals made by the last Government, under which most of the county boroughs would have disappeared altogether, being left with no councils and no functions. The important thing to remember is that there will be new counties.
It may interest hon. Members to know that the urban population of the new counties outside my proposed metropolitan areas and the Greater London area will be 66 per cent. of the total population. Anyone who believes, therefore, that these new counties will be dominated by the countryside will realise that we have at last achieved what all Governments have tried to bring about—much closer collaboration and co-operation between county and countryside than we have ever managed in the past.
Secondly, I want to emphasise the importance of management in these new authorities. It would be possible to reform local government and then find that the new authorities were not operating on a sensible managerial basis. I am pleased to announce to the House that agreement has been reached with the local authority associations on the terms of reference, timing and handling of the setting-up of a committee to advise new authorities upon the best management structure. The preparation of advice will be under the supervision of a steering committee consisting of people drawn from the local authority associations and my Department. They will be assisted by a working group of local government officers serviced by my Department. The cost of the study will be shared equally by local government and central Government. I am anxious to see that when the new local authorities are elected in

1973 and take over their powers in 1974 they have received the best possible advice upon the management structure of those new authorities both in terms of elected members and officials. This is a unique opportunity to carry out that exercise.
One of the objectives of local government reform is to see that the new authorities are able to carry out their functions with less interference from Whitehall. We discovered that over the years Parliament has given the central Government many sanctions and powers over local authorities. Some of these, although they exist as legal powers, have not been used for many a decade; some of them will have to continue. In total there are over a thousand sanctions that central Government has taken over local government. Many are operated, some of them creating a good deal of work and bureaucracy.
I have therefore asked all Departments in Whitehall, to whom I have sent a list of the sanctions affecting them, to examine which of them will continue to be necessary after the reform of local government. I hope that we will be able to remove from our legislation many of those sanctions and powers of central Government over local government with the result that there will be less interference from Whitehall in local affairs than has been the case previously.
This is a radical and important programme of reform. We intend to see that the reform is brought in after the fullest consultation with all involved and after listening to the arguments, from wherever they may come. But we will reform on the basis of the two tier system of local government and we will adhere completely to the timetable in the White Paper. Legislation will be introduced later this year; the new authorities will be elected in 1973 and will take over their powers in the spring of 1974. When this is done it will bring in a new, important and exciting era for all those in local government.

4.32 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Crosland: I start on an important point about consultation. Since the White Paper was issued in February certain events have occurred. Labour has gained control of 14 county boroughs, 10 non-county


boroughs and 30 urban district councils. In many other places there has been a large gain of seats which has made the control very much more even than it was. I mention these facts not from any desire to gloat or to make partisan propaganda but because they are directly relevant to the White Paper and Circular 8/71 which was issued with it. Paragraph 9 of Circular 8/71 asks councils for their detailed views on boundaries, 10 copies, and three copies of any maps which they may wish to produce, by the end of May, 1971.
It is now 19th May. Where control has changed, the new councils typically —as in my constituency, where it has nearly changed—have not yet met and it would be impossible for those new councils to give their considered views by the end of May. I must, therefore, ask the right hon. Gentleman formally and as an act of good faith—and I am sure that he will do this—to extend the deadline for comments. If the Government do not do this, then the whole notion of consultation over boundaries will turn out to be pure farce.

Mr. Peter Walker: I will certainly do that. It is a perfectly valid and fair point but I must ask that where there has been a change of control they should examine this matter very quickly and get their comments to me.

Mr. Crosland: That is a very reasonable compromise.
I will not comment on the three new points the right hon. Gentleman mentioned but will ask my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin) to do that when he replies. As for the White Paper, the sensible thing is to start by asking: "What is not in question between the two sides of the House?" It is not in question that we need a radical reform of local government. The last Government accepted that, it is accepted by this Government, by almost all hon. Members and outside commentators, so I do not argue the point this afternoon. I merely congratulate the Government on bringing forward firm proposals.
Secondly, it is not in question that the matter is urgent. We used to hear a

great deal about waiting for Crowther or for the Green Paper on finance. I had prepared certain effective quotations from what the right hon. Gentleman has said in the past, but in view of his handsome statement today on the subject I shall tear up these quotations and merely congratulate him on a very intelligent conversion to what we were saying last year.
Thirdly, it is not in question what are the basic weaknesses in the present system, the removal of which should be the main objective of reform. The Royal Commission, the Labour White Paper and the present White Paper all make basically the same analysis of what is wrong with local government today. The weaknesses are the artificial and damaging separation of town and country, the fact that too many authorities are too small and weak to provide the full range of local authority services, and the confusing and illogical division of functions between, at the moment, no fewer than five different types of authority.
At this point agreement ends. For, when the White Paper, which incidentally is a poor and ill-written document for so important a reform, comes to apply these principles in practice it produces in some parts of the country a disastrously wrong solution. This is not an accident, it is not due to laziness, incompetence or fuzziness on the part of Ministers or officials. It is due to a deliberate political decision, and that decision is reached by saying, "When in doubt, come down on the side of the rural counties against the urban towns and cities".
This is not only my opinion, it is shared by most informed commentators in the Press and almost unanimously by the planning profession. I always enjoy Government spokesmen when they are quoting from the New Statesman—favourite reading these days with all Ministers in the Department of the Environment. The trouble is that such quotations have a somewhat capricious and unpredictable quality. They all tend to have in common a firm desire on the part of someone to dissociate himself from what he assented to when in government.
I would like to give one or two rather more representative quotations to show that what I am now saying is widely believed by the Press. First the


Evening Standard of 18th February which said:
A Chance Missed.
Since reforms of local government come less than once in a lifetime this is particularly sad. …One must presume that the purpose behind sacrificing this great opportunity for rational reform is largely political.
The Economist on 20th February said that the White Paper:
… is in certain key respects a disaster of political prejudice … the (version) they have chosen must surpass the wildest dreams of the conservative clubs of Worcestershire and Wilmslow.
New Society of 18th February said:
Here, in the English reform, a suspicion of a pure political carve-up, devoid of all justification in terms of social geography or of good planning.
I could quote other examples. Why is it that there is this strong feeling that, in certain critical parts of the country, the Government solution fails to meet the essential problem? I believe the reason is that we have had a growing consensus —and this is why the Royal Commission was set up—that the existing boundaries do not match the pattern of life in the 1970s. They do not match the housing or planning needs, the pattern of employment, commuting, shopping and activity generally.
There was also widespread agreement that what was needed was a pattern based on urban centres, with an urban and rural hinterland, a pattern that would fit the pattern of work and leisure in a motorised society. It is true that this argument does not apply to large rural parts of the country where there is no particular housing or planning problem, and where it is perfectly right and proper that the boundaries should be a matter of historic sentiment and tradition. It does apply to the essential urban areas of the country in which 80 per cent. of our population lives.
The argument is explicitly accepted in the White Paper which says:
The areas of many existing authorities are outdated and no longer reflect the pattern of life and work in a modern society. The division between counties and county boroughs has prolonged an artificial separation of big towns from their surrounding hinterlands for functions whose planning and administration need to embrace both town and country.
Those are excellent sentiments, but what have we got? We have something quite

different. In certain crucial urban areas we have a pattern which ignores all these arguments and all the facts of social geography. We have large county boroughs sunk in rural counties, whose boundaries have been unchanged since the pre-industrial and pre-motor age. We have the big conurbations hemmed in by tight boundaries which ignore all the realities of planning, transport and overspill needs.
I start by saying a few words about the non-metropolitan boroughs. In some cases—Bristol, Bath, Tees-side, Hull—the solution runs along the same lines as the Royal Commission's Report and the previous Government's White Paper. The same is true of many non-county boroughs in large rural counties. In these cases there is no dispute between us. But in a number of large county boroughs the solution is critically different and infinitely worse. I mention Plymouth, Bournemouth, Southampton, Portsmouth, Brighton, Southend, Peterborough, my own area of Grimsby and South Humberside, Stoke-on-Trent, Blackburn, Burnley and Preston. Most of them, incidentally, are Tory-controlled boroughs and most of them protested loudly. Two of them—Southend and Bournemouth—have even given their Tory Members of Parliament some "little local difficulties."
I do not agree with all the alternative proposals put forward by these boroughs, but I salute their courage. If the whole of the Tory A.M.C. had had the courage of Alderman Harris of Southend, we might have had much better proposals from the Government.
I sympathise with the basic feeling behind the protest. Basically it is a protest against the final disappearance of the tradition of the all-purpose borough authority, the all-purpose authority which has pioneered almost all the great reforms in English local government. In addition, it is a protest against the fact that these large, powerful, self-confident towns and cities are being submerged by rural interests and swallowed up in much larger rural counties than the Labour unitary areas ever suggested for them.
There was a lot of talk 18 months ago about "R. E. Mote", although we do not see so many car stickers on the subject today. But the position is far worse under the Government's proposals.


Labour's 51 unitary authorities have given way to 38 Tory counties. In consequence, both the size and population of the counties are substantially greater than was the case under our proposals and their headquarters are normally further away from the bulk of the population.
If I had to pick out the borough which I thought had had the worst deal under the present proposals, I would pick Plymouth. However, I wish to deal not with Plymouth—the most scandalous of the proposals—but with the area which I know best, my own constituency of Grimsby. Like Plymouth, Grimsby and South Humberside constitute a major industrial growth point—based on chemicals, ports, steel at Scunthorpe, food processing and fishing. We look seawards, north across the Humber and westwards for our communications. South Humberside forms a coherent industrial growth area recognised as such by Redcliffe-Maud and the Labour Government. But the one direction in which we in Grimsby and South Humberside do not look is southwards towards the rest of Lincolnshire. Yet we are to become part of the huge county of Lincolnshire with probably eight out of 80 seats on the county council. The result will be that we on South Humberside will be governed by an essentially rural body consisting mainly of farming and land-owning interests who know nothing of our urban problems and are totally ignorant of industrial development problems.
In terms of remoteness every decision which affects our schools in Grimsby, our college of further education, social services, plan-making, highways, traffic, clean air and refuse disposal will be taken 30 miles away in the cathedral city of Lincoln. This is much further from the people, to use what was a favourite phrase one and a half years ago, than was proposed by the Labour Government. To be precise, it is further by 30 miles of sparsely populated countryside served by totally inadequate roads.
It is impossible to reconcile this situation with some of the words in the White Paper. Paragraph 8 states:
Local authority areas should be related to the areas within which people have a common interest—through living in a recognisable community, through the links of employment, shopping or social activities, or through history

and tradition. Local boundaries, the allocation of responsibilities and the system as a whole should be understood and accepted as sensible by electors, by members and by officers. And, above all else, a genuine local democracy implies that decisions should be taken—and should be seen to be taken—as locally as possible".
Not one of those sentences describes the solution propounded for my area or for any of the large boroughs I have mentioned.
I think that these powerful boroughs have strong reasons for protest—in terms of remoteness, of planning and of the total lack of cohesion of their areas. I do not support all their alternative proposals, but they have shown up a basic flaw in the White Paper.
I turn to the metropolitan counties. With regard to the number, the Government have a strong case for adding South Yorkshire and Tyneside. We considered and rejected this, but it may very well be that the Government's solution is better than the solution in the Labour Government's White Paper. But the present Government were quite wrong to reject a metropolitan area for South Hampshire. There have been protests from Portsmouth and Southampton councils and, as I understand it, they both incline to the notion of a metropolitan county. I am sure that in this major growth point which must be planned as a whole a metropolitan county makes the only sensible solution.
My main concern is not the numbers of the metropolitan counties on which, with the one exception of South Hampshire, the Government have a strong case, but their boundaries. In the case of South Yorkshire, certainly the southern boundary looks wrong. Sheffield is cut off from a large part of its commuter area. In the case of Tyneside, the new metropolitan area raises the question whether Northumberland as it will stand will be a viable county, as to which I have grave doubts. In the case of the West Midlands, the boundaries are totally incomprehensible unless one understands them in political terms. Birmingham is cut off completely from parts of Worcestershire and Staffordshire which it desperately needs for its housing. On the other hand, it is incredibly joined with Coventry, with which it has no substantial work or commuting links. This poses a threat to the green belt between Birmingham


and Coventry without doing anything significant to solve Birmingham's housing problem.
This raises in the most acute form the general problem, to which the Secretary of State referred, of the right boundaries for these great conurbations. He has been universally criticised on this point, even by The Times, which otherwise gave a rather tepid welcome to the White Paper, and even by Lord Redcliffe-Maud himself, whose exquisite courtesy and diplomacy in commenting on the White Paper has been one of the marvels of the recent public debate. The crux of the problem in these areas—

Mrs. Elaine Kellett: rose—

Mr. Crosland: I have a vast folder of quotations, but in order to save time I do not propose to read them. The criticisms appeared in the Observer and were repeated in the House of Lords. Lord Redcliffe-Maud made it clear, although I agree that he generally welcomed the White Paper, that he had grave reservations about the boundaries of the metropolitan areas, particularly the West Midlands, Merseyside and Manchester.
The crux of the problem is familiar to hon. Members. None of these three areas can solve its housing or planning problems within its own area because it lacks the land. The areas must therefore rely on overspill arrangements, which involve endless arguments with the surrounding counties. This leads not only to a permanent cold war, like that between Birmingham and Worcestershire, but also, since the conurbations usually lose the argument, to additional pressure on housing space and amenities in their areas. For that reason, the Royal Commission and the Labour Government proposed that the big cities should be given land in which they could solve their problems and bring to an end the cold war between the cities and the counties.
The Government's White Paper drastically narrows those boundaries and confines the cities to the existing built up areas. Once again, we have bottled up the cities. Once again they are in a position in which they cannot solve their housing problems within their own

borders, and there will be a resumption of the cold war between urban and rural areas and between metropolitan counties and the neighbouring councils. What we have—and this is the political fact—is a huge victory for Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Cheshire and Lancashire, and, to a lesser extent, for Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. The irony of this position—

Sir Tatton Brinton: Wil the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Crosland: I am told that Mr. Speaker has said that 60 right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak. This is a particularly crowded Chamber and people never come in these numbers unless they wish to speak. I deduce that it would be in the general interest if I proceeded as rapidly as I can.
The irony of this position is that, since none of these metropolitan counties is large enough to solve its regional problems itself, the Government will have to step in far more than would otherwise be the case. The White Paper refers, quite rightly, to the need for regional strategies, and joint bodies of standing joint conferences, regional economic planning councils and the rest. I strongly agree with everything the White Paper says about that. But, since we shall not have any implementing agency with a regional outlook and regional coverage, the Government will itself have to force the solutions which come from these regional plans on the rural counties. In other words, if we are to have in practice any regional planning that makes sense, the Government will have to take more power, and use more intervention and more enforcement than if the conurbations had wider boundaries than they have been given. This is the ironic result of the Government's determination to draw these boundaries so narrowly.
I turn briefly to the question of functions, first in the metropolitan counties. Obviously, the division of functions there is quite popular with the large and powerful boroughs in these areas, since they lose very little to the metropolitan councils—only overall planning and transport—whereas we have no new metropolitan counties yet in existence to make the case the other way.
The metropolitan counties have too few powers in one or two important respects. The first is education, to which


the right hon. Gentleman referred. The Labour White Paper, contrary to the Royal Commission, took the view that education should be in the top tier. I believe that still to be the right solution. I shall not argue the point now, as I argued it in our corresponding debate last year. I will merely say that a number of metropolitan districts are too small to provide a full range of educational services, particularly in further education. This view is still supported by the bulk of educational opinion and has recently been reiterated by the National Union of Teachers. I have no hope of overturning the decision on where education is to be, so I will confine myself to stressing the vital importance of encouraging the districts to come together to provide those central services which were provided by the counties—for example, by the West Riding—and which the districts by themselves are not strong enough to provide. It is a pity that the Secretary of State for Education and Science is not here.
My other main anxiety relates to housing, which was also referred to by the right hon. Gentleman. The districts are the primary housing authorities, which obviously is right, but the metropolitan counties should surely have more than "certain reserve powers, for example, for overspill". They have even less power in housing than has the G.L.C., and many people think that the G.L.C. has too little power and not too much. Many of these districts will be unable to solve their housing problems within their own borders, and will be able to do so only with the help of other districts in the same city. This establishes a strong case not for taking housing away from the districts but for giving the metropolitan county more specific powers in overall housing strategy.
I have one other point on the metropolitan counties, and this point was made in an article by Mr. Boynton, the well-known Clerk to the Cheshire County Council, with whom I have disagreed in most arguments in the last few years, although I happen to agree with him on this one important point. The metropolitan county will lack all the glamorous services which have obvious member appeal. They will not have housing, education or the social services, and the question is whether they will attract councillors of high calibre. People may want to go on to the district councils which

have the services to which councillors are mainly accustomed. This is a danger which should be borne in mind.
As to the functions outside metropolitan areas I shall be brief. I still believe in the unitary system being better for these areas. I prefer it to the two-tier system; it is less confusing in every way. Nevertheless, this is water under the bridge. The Government will not change their minds on this so I will not waste time arguing the point.
Any two-tier system must produce a certain element of confusion, as this one does. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that, if there are two tiers, housing must go to the district tier, otherwise the districts would have no credibility. This means that, contrary to all the Seebohm Report says, housing management is separated from the personal social services. Planning is split right down the middle, with the overall responsibility with the county and development control with the district. True, there is to be a joint planning staff, but how this staff will reconcile its loyalty to its two masters is hard to see, and it may be particularly difficult when, as will often be the case, the county is Conservative and the district is Labour.
The personal social services, contrary to the Seebohm Report, are divorced from housing management. Considerable problems will arise in dealing with the homeless, for instance, if these two services are run by authorities on two different levels. The importance of cooperation between these authorities, and of bringing the administration, at any rate, down to a very local level, cannot be exaggerated.
So we have two problems outside the metropolitan areas in the rest of the country, and to some extent they pull in different directions. One is the division of services which should be administered together. The other is whether the districts constitute a viable and credible level of local government capable of attracting able councillors and able officials. They have fewer powers and functions than most people expected them to have and they are certainly smaller in terms of population than most people expected. The Secretary of State has said that he is in consultation with local authority associations about functions, and the A.M.C. has put forward


detailed proposals about what functions should be transferred and about so-called first-class and second-class citizens. I cannot go all the way along with the proposals, but I hope that a better division of functions will emerge from these discussions.
The right hon. Gentleman said that one of the objectives of reform—one which was eloquently extolled by him both last year and this year, and frequently is by Tory speakers—is to give to local authorities greater freedom from Government control. He used constantly to criticise the Labour Government for not giving local authorities sufficient freedom. I do not doubt, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that many hundreds of detailed controls will be swept away, as they would have been under the Labour proposals. Incidentally, I must point out what he already knows, that circular 2/70 is raising considerable difficulties in connection with derelict land and industrial estates.
The detailed controls will go, but I am interested in what extra freedom will be given in areas of major policy. Are the Government genuinely sincere in this matter, or is this simply a lot of words? On rents, the right hon. Gentleman said in the corresponding debate of last year:
Local authorities may wish to pursue a particular type of policy towards the sale of council houses. or towards council house rents … But the Government …"—
that is the Labour Government—
… have said that in all these matters they no longer want democratically elected councils to make the decisions … This is a great discouragement to those in local government … The first criticism is of the Government in that respect." — [OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th February, 1970; Vol. 796, c. 447.]
That is the Labour Government—
a particular type of policy … towards Council house rents"!
Am I imagining that the Government have announced that they propose to legislate to compel local authorities to move to fair rents? Since I am not imagining that, what is left of this suggestion that local authorities should have freedom to pursue a particular attitude towards rents? It is a preposterous statement. We read with great admiration numerous flattering articles in the Press about the right hon. Gentle-

man in which, with boyish charm, he modestly claims credit for things most of which the Labour Government initiated. But on these local authority issues the right hon. Gentleman has rather harder questions to answer than any put to him by Miss Scott-James in the Evening Standard.
I turn from council house rents, on which the right hon. Gentleman will find it hard to repeat his words of last year, to education. What about comprehensive reorganisation? Where do we stand on Circular 10/70 and the famous local option put forward by the right hon. Lady the Secretary of State for Education and Science. We would like some assurances about that matter. We should like to know that when the newly-elected Labour councils submit comprehensive reorganisation schemes they will be accepted by the right hon. Lady. And when the new Labour-controlled Bexley Council withdraws, as it certainly will, the scandalous proposal of its Tory predecessor to establish the first new grammar school since the end of the war, I hope that the Secretary of State the right hon. Lady will stick to what she said about local option and that there will be no question of forcing her educational ideas down the throats of Labour councillors.
An even more striking example of the unbridgeable gulf between the Tory words about freedom and Tory deeds relates to free school milk for children between seven and 11. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that he proposes to withdraw this provision, but at the moment it is legally possible for a local authority to provide free milk and pay for it out of rates. Two Labour-controlled authorities, Merthyr Tydfil and Manchester, wish to do this. However, we are told, despite all that is said about Tory freedom for local authorities, that if Manchester and Merthyr Tydfil proceed, the Secretary of State for Education and Science will introduce a Bill forbidding them to do so. In the light of that, what are we to make of the right hon. Gentleman's words last year about democratically elected councillors making their own decisions, about how interference is a great discouragement, and so on and so forth? Never have so many words been eaten so quickly after a General Election. Never has the hypocrisy of


Tory freedom been so dramatically manifest.
I turn to certain constitutional and other matters in Chapter III of the White Paper. I wish to deal with the point about the secrecy with which these matters have been discussed. The right hon. Gentleman quite rightly took up this point in his speech and admitted that there had been criticism. He is providing some modification of the procedure. I am grateful for what he said, but I must stress the importance of this matter. The consultation documents, which no doubt have been seen by many Members of Parliament but not by the general public, involve matters of great democratic interest. So far as Grimsby is concerned, these documents will determine the size of the council, the nature of the elections and the area which the council covers. These are matters which are not only of interest to M.P.s and individual authorities, but also to ratepayers, electors, local government employees and the rest. Therefore, I hope that we can go further than the right hon. Gentleman has gone today and make sure that these consultation documents are published in local newspapers so that the electors will be able to comment upon them.
I turn to a few individual points in the White Paper—first of all, aldermen. The Labour Government said that we would abolish the office of alderman, but it is now being reprieved. I believe this to be a retrograde step, particularly at a time when a number of councils remain in Tory control only because of the aldermanic system.
Secondly, in regard to the local ombudsman, it is not clear from the White Paper what the Government have in mind, but it appears that they are withdrawing from the proposal we made and are searching for some compromise solution. I hope that that compromise will be at least as effective as we were proposing. I believe that this matter is crucial in local government. And, if I did not believe it before, I am firm in my belief now that I know the Tory-controlled Greater London Council yesterday came out against the idea.
One important matter which the right hon. Gentleman did not mention was the rule on disqualification. He will remember that we in our White Paper last year proposed a definite and positive

liberalisation of the rule which now prevents dozens of local government employees—for example, teachers—from serving as elected members of councils. The present White Paper appears to go back significantly on what we said last year. I would ask the Under-Secretary when he replies to say something about this matter. If this is the case, then the disfranshisement of thousands of teachers will continue. Teachers will virtually never be able to serve on the new non-metropolitan county councils. This seems to be a serious denial of civic rights.
I will say a little now about parishes and grass roots councils. In our White Paper last year we tried to give this matter a strong impetus, though not, I admit, with unanimous agreement in my own party. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has the same thing in mind. The necessities are two. First of all, to maintain rural parishes where they now exist, which I believe the right hon. Gentleman intends to do; secondly, to encourage the establishment of urban parishes or neighbourhood councils—partly because authorities are becoming larger and larger, and partly because we are seeing a huge growth of one-purpose pressure groups which are normally middle class in composition and do not always influence their local council in the right direction [Interruption.] I do not know why the hon. Gentleman laughs. He has only to go to Barnsbury to see this happening. Such groups tend to influence local councillors in a way that is not always in the interest of the majority of inhabitants. The election of the Golborne Council in North Kensington shows the sort of road on which we ought to proceed.
On the matter of councillors' allowances, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, the problem was already acute before reorganisation and will become much more acute with these new and larger counties. For instance, who from Grimsby will be able to afford to travel 30 miles to Lincoln for daytime meetings of the council? This may be all very well for retired and leisured people with time on their hands, housewives with grown-up families, solicitors and small business men who are able to leave their partners to take over the business while they are attending council meetings, and possibly for full-time officials of trade unions. But for the young skilled


workers, young lecturers and young professional people, this will constitute an unacceptable risk to promotion and earnings prospects. One consequence of the sweeping election changes last week is the huge increase in the number of young councillors. If we are to get these young councillors in local authority work we must do something drastic about the problem of allowances.
The matter of salaries, as the right hon. Gentleman said, raises an important point of principle, and is a matter of disagreement probably within both parties. But whether we go the whole hog on salaries, the future system cannot conceivably work and we shall not get the calibre of councillors we need without a full measure of allowances to ensure that councillors are not out of pocket as a result of council service.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the staff commission, and I welcome the fact that he is to set up this body. I should welcome a little more detail from the Under-Secretary about when this body will be appointed and how it will work in the interim period. I hope that it will be more effective than the one we had at the time of the London government reorganisation, which was not wholly effective.
The last among the points of substance I wish to raise relates to the boundary Commission. I am concerned as to how the new boundaries will be determined. I understand that the initial county boundaries and metropolitan district boundaries must in practice be determined by Ministers, and I would not object to that, but I would ask about the important point of the initial distribution of ward boundaries. I assume that this will be decided by the Home Office, not by the Department for the Environment, but given the timetable which the Government have set themselves, it will be determined practically without any sort of local advice or serious local consultation. This may be the inevitable result of the timetable, but I should like the Under-Secretary to comment on this matter because, at first sight, it does not appear to be a satisfactory solution.
Thereafter, we shall have the boundary commission to determine the initial district boundaries, to redetermine ward boundaries and to determine future

changes in all other boundaries—county and metropolitan districts. We must know more about this boundary commission. We have never had a boundary commission for local government before. It will have exceptional powers—[Interruption.] Certainly we have never had a permanent one. We have had two efforts since the end of the war, both of which collapsed in ignominous failure. We have never had a continuing and powerful commission.
This boundary commission will operate with few criteria laid down by Parliament. There is to be a major transfer of responsibility from Parliament to the boundary commission, and it is a major innovation which has not been sufficiently discussed. For example, what sort of people will sit on this boundary commission? The Secretary of State was asked this at his Press conference. He gave a splendid answer. He said that they
… will be of the usual boundary commission calibre".
That is hardly a sufficient answer to the question that I am putting. It is an example of the Anne Scott-James type of question-and-answer session. It does not answer the very serious point that I am putting here.
If we take the normal membership of a Parliamentary boundary commission, that is not suitable for a local government boundary commission. The problems are different. We must have people on the commission who have experience of local government. Incidentally, they will be taking intensely political decisions. They must have both a certain political sophistication and, above all, a knowledge of how local government works. They must not just be people of normal boundary commission calibre.
The commission will have the task of seeing that the rural areas are not over-represented in the new set-up. Very surprisingly, considering how prejudiced the Government's proposals are in favour of rural areas, the White Paper contains a phrase to the effect that their interests should not be overshadowed. In the new set-up, there is a greater danger that the interests of urban areas will be overshadowed. It is essential that the boundary commission bears that danger in mind. I believe that rural weighting is at last to disappear, but we should like to


be reassured about that. There is much anxiety about what is likely to happen generally to boundaries, especially in the urban areas.
I find this a dispiriting White Paper. Some parts of it are good and welcome. But, whenever a choice has had to be made, it has come down always on the side of the rural and the conservative and against the urban and the radical. It has been criticised by planners especially, for reasons that I have mentioned. Yet there is the knowledge, experience and ability in Whitehall to provide an infinitely better solution. An infinitely better one has been provided in the case of Scotland. There is no lack of ability in Whitehall to provide better proposals.
I do not want an indefinite delay. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. We have gone over this course year after year. I am not pleading for a major delay, although, when the right hon. Gentleman says that his timetable for legislation is the same as ours, he must remember that a year was lost by the General Election and the change of Government. In the light of the very serious planning criticisms which have been made, in the light of the anxiety about the boundary commission, and in the light of the fact that many councils have changed control and need more time for consultation, I urge not an indefinite delay but the need for additional time to think again about those particular aspects of the White Paper which have aroused almost universal public criticism.

5.15 p.m.

Sir David Renton: I want to observe Mr. Speaker's 10-minute rule, so I hope that the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) will forgive me if I do not reply to his interesting and controversial speech, except to say that it is not right or fair to say that the boundary commissions collapsed. One was wound up by a Labour Minister, having already made proposals accepted by Parliament which happened to affect my constituency and with which I hope to deal in a moment.
Although I have some detailed reservations about my right hon. Friend's proposals, I have no doubt that reform is necessary on broadly the lines that he has put forward, and they are well thought out.
There is one important exception to the opening words of the White Paper which say:
The structure of local government in England is that which was bequeathed to us by the legislation of 1888 and 1894.
That exception arose when, as a result of the last boundary commission, we had the amalgamation of Huntingdonshire and the Soke of Peterborough and another amalgamation of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. In his Circular, my right hon. Friend proposes that those two recently formed counties should be amalgamated further and that part of West Suffolk should be added to them, thus creating the proposed new Area No. 30.
I am speaking not only on my own behalf but at the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), and my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane). Both the county councils to which I have referred and in which our constituencies lie have passed resolutions by large majorities asking that they should not be further amalgamated. I suggest that there are strong and exceptional reasons why their wishes should be met. Paragraph 7(a) of the Circular refers to "special circumstances". Here, there are special circumstances of importance, as I shall hope to show.
In the past six years, both counties have undergone the upheaval of amalgamation. It really is an unheaval and I should mention in passing that, so far as can be seen, no economies have been achieved by the amalgamation in our county. It would not be right to inflict another and much greater unheaval on them unless it were shown to be really necessary, that it would produce real economies and result in a new county which geographically and in other ways created a cohesive and sound entity which was likely to work.
The county which is proposed by the amalgamation of the two recently formed counties with the addition of parts of West Suffolk would not achieve those ends. Such a county would have the disadvantage of being divided by a large wedge of low-lying fenland driven into its centre from the north. This geographical feature has meant that all the major road communications, and in part the remaining railways, form a rectangle


at the corners of which are Peterborough, Wisbech, Cambridge and Huntingdon. But communications across the centre of the proposed new county are not good. It is an awkward and long journey between Cambridge and Peterborough, especially in winter. One has either to use minor roads across the fen or take the major roads the long way round.
The cities of Cambridge and Peterborough would be at the opposite corners of the proposed new county. But those two cities have never had any affinity. Both are large and prosperous, and both are growing fast. If they were both put into the same county there would he an endless tug-o-war between them.
There is the further factor of population. We realise that my right hon. Friend intends to use the figure of a quarter of a million as the normal minimum population of the new counties. I hope that that will not be regarded as "a rule of thumb". I hope that it will be regarded as the normal, but that where justifiable exceptions can be made to that rule, he will not hesitate to allow them.
There is no difficulty in achieving the figure of a quarter of a million in the area of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely because it has already got a population of 334,000. Huntingdon and Peterborough has a population of 207,000, but it is. and will remain, one of the fastest-growing areas of population in Britain. I say that for three reasons: first, because of the major expansion scheme at Peterborough, which has already started; secondly, because of the fast-developing town development schemes at both Huntingdon and St. Neots; and, thirdly, because throughout this county there is increasing activity of all kinds.
As a result of those factors, the county population will reach 235,000 by mid-1974—a few weeks after my right hon. Friend's D-day for bringing the new scheme into force—and it will reach the magic figure of a quarter of a million by about the end of 1975, which is easily within two years of the start of the new scheme. Taking the projection, which I am told is very reliable, based on all the known factors, including the planned expansion of Peterborough, by 1981—only 10 years from now—there will be well over 300.000 people in the county. Therefore, unless we are to apply a rule

of thumb for the sake of doing so, which I am sure is not my right hon. Friend's intention, we shall reach his population target and prove that we have special circumstances.
The right hon. Member for Grimsby quoted paragraph 6 of the White Paper, which states:
The areas of many existing authorities are out-dated and no longer reflect the pattern of life and work in modern society.
That may be true of many areas, but it is not true of our two new counties—Huntingdon and Peterborough, on the one hand, and Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, on the other—both of which are growing fast, vigorously and progressively. Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend will leave them to get on with the job.
In fairness, I should add that the St. Ives Borough Council in my constituency and March and Wisbech in the constituency of my hon. Friend are in favour of the further amalgamation. March and Wisbech are apparently in favour of it for mainly economic reasons. But I hope that whoever is to wind up the debate for the Government will be able to assure my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely and his constituents that future county boundaries in this area will not affect regional economic development. That is the anxiety in March and Wisbech. Such an assurance would allay anxieties in the northern part of my hon. Friend's constituency, so I hope that such an assurance will be forthcoming.
Having made those main constituency points on behalf of my hon. Friends and myself, I should like to add one or two other points.
As to districts at the second tier, I hope that my right hon. Friend has not got a closed mind about the minimum figure of 40,000 for predominantly rural areas. Surely we have to be very careful not to make the areas of district councils, which will operate some very personal services, including housing, so big that the administration seems too remote from so many of the constituents concerned. Thinking in terms again of a rule of thumb, 40,000 might be a mistake. My right hon. Friend could well afford to come down to 30,000 without impairing administration and preventing economies which might be made, but at the same time giving a better personal service.
I was sorry that the appendix to the White Paper contained no reference to coping with emergencies either in peace or in war. That should obviously be the responsibility of county councils. I know that the Government are carrying out a home defence review. I assume that this omission was an oversight. I hope that the Government will decide that what used to be called civil defence and what is now so widely necessary to cope with peace-time emergencies will be combined as one function with the emphasis on peace-time emergencies.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his colleagues on all the work which they have put into the White Paper. I think that we are moving on the right lines. I am sure that he and all right hon. and hon. Members on both sides will agree that this reform will have succeeded to a great extent if, as a result, our constituents cease to regard all of us as members of every local authority in their constituencies.

5.27 p.m.

Mr. H. J. Delargy: Mr. Deputy Speaker, in compliance with Mr. Speaker's request for brevity, I will disregard the various documents and detailed notes with which, most uncharacteristically, I arrived for the debate.
In consequence, my brief speech will unashamedly be a constituency speech. That is not surprising because, when dealing with local government, one must speak about local interests.
The Secretary of State must have received representations from all over the country from boroughs, county boroughs, urban district councils and parish councils. He has certainly received representations from Thurrock, which is an urban district.
Many people imagine that all urban districts are small, drowsy, rural places built round a parish pump. Some of them undoubtedly are, but Thurrock is not. Thurrock covers an area of 44,000 acres, it has a population of nearly 130,000 and it is one of the most highly industrialised areas in Britain. Therefore, it irks the people of Thurrock to he regarded as though they were living in a sleepy hollow.
Some of the proposals in the White Paper treat them as though they were

indeed living in a sleepy hollow. For example, whoever came up with the proposal that highways and traffic responsibilities be surrendered to the county council must be one of those who regard urban districts as exclusively rural. I feel sure that the Minister for Transport Industries would not make or agree with such a suggestion. I say that because the Minister has seen for himself the abnormally busy roads of Thurrock with traffic gong to and coming from the great container berths at Tilbury Docks, the big oil refineries at Coryton and Shellhaven and the other numerous commercial undertakings in the district. Problems of traffic, the maintenance of roads, and regulations about parking, lighting and public footpaths in this extremely busy area are local problems which vitally concern the local people; and only local people have the required knowledge to suggest local policies.
In support of my argument I quote from the White Paper words which have already been quoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland):
Above all else, a genuine local democracy implies that decisions should be taken—and should be seen to be taken—as locally as possible.
Decisions about our traffic and all its problems will not be taken locally, and therefore will not be seen to be taken locally, if they are taken in some far away place like Chelmsford, where there is no knowledge and no experience of traffic problems like ours.
I shall cite only one more example. It is suggested in the White Paper that the library service should be transferred to the county council. We regard the library service as a local service, which has been paid for locally, and which is extremely well administered locally. In two or three months from now the Thurrock Council will have completed a new central library, including a theatre, a museum and a citizens' advice centre, at a cost of £920,000. It seems odd to us that the administration of the library, the museum and the theatre may now be transferred to Chelmsford. I repeat that we regard this as a local service which ought to be administered locally.
One could go into other anomalies in the White Paper—a document with which, I hasten to say, I am in agreement


in principle—but, in view of the need to be brief, I shall not go into them all. I am sure that other hon. Members will do so.
The main representations which Thurrock Urban District Council has made to the Minister have been made in conjunction with its neighbour, the other large urban district in the area, Basildon, and it pleads for not one county council in Essex, but two, one mainly rural, and one mainly industrial. I shall not ask the Minister to give an answer to this proposal this evening, because he has only recently seen it. Nor will I argue the case this afternoon, but I should point out two things. First, the idea was not ours originally. It came from two members of the Royal Commission, who published a note of reservation. They were Sir Francis Hill and Mr. R. C. Wallis. I do not have the pleasure of knowing Sir Francis Hill, but I used to be very friendly with Mr. R. C. Wallis many years ago, and I am glad to note that his sense of judgement has not been impaired in the interval.
They suggest that Essex
should be divided, with mid-Essex based on Chelmsford, and south Essex, an In ban fringe along the Thames bank from Basildon to Southend, based probably on Southend.
I am glad to see the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) in his place, as he usually is. They go on to say that
to merge these large urban communities on the Thames bank in a predominantly rural area would be to reproduce the conflicts which went on in Essex before the Loudon parts of it were removed from the administrative county and placed in Greater London.
The second consideration is that from a quick glance at Circular 8/71 I note that of the 44 county councils—that is, excluding Greater London, of course—more than half have a population of less than that which would be in either of the two counties of Essex which I have mentioned, and most of them have a far lower rateable value.
I hope that those things will be taken into consideration when the Secretary of State considers the proposals placed before him by the Urban District Council of Thurrock.

5.36 p.m.

Sir Tatton Brinton: I think that most of the authorities in the West Midlands, and Worcestershire in particular, will welcome the boundaries set out in the White Paper, as I do.
I was interested in the comments of the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland), who referred particularly to the Birmingham boundaries. He made a plea for Birmingham to receive areas of Worcestershire, in particular, in order to satisfy the city's housing needs. I am glad that that proposal has been reversed in the White Paper, because, apart from the feelings of the authorities whom I represent, it seems to me that that must be a bad planning principle because it must lead to the spreading stain principle of development, whereby the great conurbations continue to become larger by growth at their edges. Unless some attempt is made to move populations from these areas to other areas well away from them, these large conurbations must, inevitably, become even larger and larger, and I should have thought that anybody would regard that as an undesirable objective.
Among the objects of reform, we are told that the Government
are determined to play their part in creating the administrative framework within which the real challenges can be met in a way that matches the scale of the problems. The Government are equally determined to return power to those people who should exercise decisions locally, and to ensure that local government is given every opportunity to take that initiative and responsibility effectively, speedily and with vigour.
Moreover, in dealing with the functions of district councils, the White Paper says in paragraph 22:
The Government intend these councils to be genuine authorities, existing in their own right. and with responsibilites and powers sufficent to make service with them a reality for both members and officers … it would be a disservice to local government to establish authorities with functions which were inadequate to arouse public respect or interest.
In the light of those desirable objectives, with which I fully agree, it seems to me that a conscious endeavour must be made to attain them. Some of the proposals for the division of powers between county and district councils as set out in the White Paper do not fully


meet the requirements of those principles. I suggest that there are certain powers —and in this I follow the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Delargy) in certain respects—which could be transferred wholly to the district councils, others which could be transferred in part, and yet others again which could be exercised concurrently in the way that certain of the powers envisaged in the White Paper are to be exercised.
Responsibility for highways, traffic and transport is to be wholly transferred to the higher authorities, and this was mentioned by the hon. Member for Thurrock. Paragraph 19 of the White Paper mentions the difficulties of divided responsibility, but it does not specify what those difficulties are, nor how serious the Government consider them to be; but surely they cannot be so great as to demand the total transfer of responsibility for highways to the larger authority. I suggest that there are certain powers which ought to be kept at district level.

Mr. Timothy Raison: Would my hon. and gallant Friend consider the experience of London, where there has been a division of traffic powers and considerable chaos? The new proposals seem likely to lead to a great improvement on that.

Sir T. Brinton: Perhaps if I develop my argument a little further, the answer will become plain. I am not talking of London. I represent a fairly typical area, with a moderate-sized town in the middle of countryside. It is this kind of country area of which I am thinking. What I am saying is not necessarily applicable to the metropolitan districts, and I do not pretend to be speaking for them.
But I would agree, that, within the non-metropolitan counties, highway and transporation planning, on the analogy of land-use planning, should be the function of the county authority, and that the formulation of policy through structure plans must be done over a wide area and should therefore remain with the county.
I would agree that public transport should be a county function, but I do not agree that it is necessary or even advisable to transfer district roads to the larger authority, for construction, repair or maintenance. Non-county boroughs and urban district councils have

carried out these functions perfectly well for many years. They are functions which arouse a great deal of local interest. Private streets, stopping and diversion of highways are local matters.
There is also the question of legal responsibility. The legal liabilities which can fall on an authority if someone trips over a manhole cover are considerable and should be coped with locally. Anyone who has served on a local council knows how many complaints arise from street lighting, repair of roads and the Gas Board taking up the pavements. These local matters should remain where they have always been. If this is accepted, it would imply that traffic management, the regulation of vehicle and pedestrian movement, would have to be kept at local level.
There is a difficulty with principal roads, but in the urban areas of counties they have an impact on redevelopment schemes by the district. Why should there not be concurrent powers here to cover the fact that many important major road works are affected by redevelopment in so many cities? Here local responsibility within the district is called for in relation to redevelopment.
Why should building regulations be transferred to the county? It is not necessary that they should be administered over a wide area. Non-county boroughs and district councils have administered building regulations and building byelaws perfectly efficiently for many years—going back more or less to 1875. To transfer these matters of strong local interest to the county authority would produce the curious anomaly that, while one has to apply to the district council for planning permission to develop, one then has to apply to the county for permission as to how one builds.
Food and drugs regulations have been administered by all county boroughs, non-county boroughs and urban district councils of over 40,000 and also by many over 20,000. If the new minimum size of the districts is to be 40,000 or more, presumably they will be large enough to have qualified under the present arrangements to be food and drugs authorities.
If these districts are to continue to be public health authorities—curiously enough, there seems to be nothing in the


White Paper to indicate the precise intentions here—surely they already have the staff to cover food and drugs administration. This is a function requiring special local knowledge, as anyone will realise who has had anything to do with it.
Another curious anomaly would arise. If a public health inspector responsible to the district went into premises on a complaint that they were vermin infested and then found that there were also food and drugs offences taking place, presumably he could take no action because that would be a matter for his county-employed colleague. This again involves an anomaly and apparently a division of powers. Food and drugs administration requires speed in action. There can be great danger to the public, and means of action should be kept as handy as possible to any source of trouble.
There is a wide variation in the needs of the administration of clean air regulations. They require no administration in most country areas. This is essentially an urban operation, and why should it not remain with the districts as one of the public health operations?
One must accept that refuse disposal has been done, in some country areas particularly, merely by buying up some good farming land and dumping stuff on it. This must be stopped: hence the reasonable suggestion that it should be a county function. But many urban authorities have extremely efficient refuse disposal systems, one of which is in Kidderminster. Kidderminster is naturally hurt at the thought that the only good refuse-destroying plant in the county of Worcestershire should be handed over to the county, which did not create it.
There appears to be a good argument for concurrent powers in this respect, within an overall policy laid down by the county but allowing those who can operate their disposal along with their refuse collection to do so. It is a remarkable suggestion that disposal and collection should be automatically separate where this is not necessary.
The hon. Member for Thurrock made a very strong plea for Thurrock's library and I would do the same for Kidderminster's, which I have frequently been told is regarded throughout the country as one of the best possessed by a town of this size. Paragraph 18 says:

Responsibility for libraries should rest with the education authority.
But, again, it does not justify that sweeping statement. There seems to be no particular reason why an education authority should automatically be a library authority. It is more natural that it should go with the authority which is running the museum and art gallery, since in many towns all three have been closely associated both geographically and even administratively.
Why should they suddenly be taken higher up to the county? After all, the county will merely take over the existing libraries in many urban centres and administer them from a greater distance. The libraries and the staff will still be there. Why should they not be locally administered? Is there any saving in efficiency, or are they to be replaced with mobile libraries? That can hardly be the intention. Where they are being run efficiently, they should remain at district level and the county should carry on doing what it already does—covering the library requirements for less fortunately placed areas. I suggest that these powers also should be made concurrent.
May I compare the proposals for England with those in the consultative document for Wales? I bow to any Welshmen present, who are very able people, but I do not understand why their districts are thought to be more competent than those in England. Under the Welsh proposals, the district councils will have the responsibility for building regulations, clear air, car parks, refuse disposal, food safety and hygience, markets, slaughterhouses, shops and offices legislation and one or two others. Most of these powers are being transferred to the county authorities in England, but not in Wales. This is yet another anomaly. Why should we not in England be given the powers which are to be entrusted to Welsh districts? It is, after all, more in tune with the general intentions of the Government. The object should be to keep the powers at the lowest level which can reasonably exercise them.
Do not let us be led away by the Pied Piper of so-called managerial efficiency or administrative convenience, for we are dealing here with the government of the people, and the nearer we can get to the people the better, even if doing


so means sacrificing a little of the convenience of some officials and occasionally being marginally less efficient. That is preferable to being super-efficient, inhuman and remote.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: I fear that a great many people will receive the new White Paper with a feeling of bored inevitability, whatever we may say on the subject. I would like to think that out of the proposals being made by hon. Members in this debate, a new vigour will be injected into the whole issue of local government reorganisation, with more exciting ideas being brought to the surface, but I have my doubt about that.
I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) that the White Paper does not resolve many outstanding difficulties and that the battle will continue. Indeed, this is my sadness over the Government's proposals, which are in no sense a final solution. However much we examine these points, this is bound to be a temporary solution, if a solution at all.
I fear that we are perpetuating the town versus country battle, certainly in the metropolitan areas, and the way in which the boundaries have been drawn is responsible for this. One cannot look at the problems caused by the isolation of a great county like Northumberland without worrying about how the various services will be maintained.
I appreciate the Minister's remarks about these proposals being subject to regional strategy, particularly in relation to Metropolitan authorities, and it is to this that I particularly wish to address my remarks.
We were told in the White Paper that there would be regional strategy for land use planning and transportation. The weakness that is caused by the division of functions, particularly on the planning side, between authorities emphasises the need for a real regional authority. I would have preferred the proposals of the minority report of the Royal Commission because they seemed to make common sense.
We need a genuine regional authority with effective power, perhaps including within its ambit some of the ad hoc functions that have been given to statu-

tory bodies in recent years. These ad hoc bodies are being confirmed by the Government's proposals for, for example, the health services. I would have thought that this type of body could be linked to a new, elected regional body.
Indeed, I do not see how anything less in size—anything smaller than a body covering a region—can perform these various functions adequately. If in the future we are to discuss the problems of, and find new sources for obtaining, local finance, it is at the level of the region that we are likely to find the best possibility of success.
Some novel suggestions appeared in a recent pamphlet issued by the Fabian Society, including some of the recomdations which the society has made to the Crowther Commission. I am sure that the Minister reads the New Statesman. He might extend his reading to Fabian Society documents. In this latest pamphlet he will find some exciting and dramatic new proposals for a form of regional authority that might take over some of the functions that have been accepted centrally.
The other end of the scale is of equal importance. I refer, of course, to the grass roots end, and I am disappointed at the tepid remarks that the Minister made about the position of the urban parish. We accept that the rural parish is enjoying a new lease of life in many areas, and particularly in some semi-urban areas, some of them not far from our larger towns. This experience has encouraged many people to argue that at a time when we are moving towards larger authorities—regardless of whether one accepts the idea of the larger regional authority—we should ensure that there is a lively base from which ideas can flow.
There is today a tremendous ferment of grass roots activity of an ad hoc character throughout our towns and countryside. It is from that ferment that we are most likely to get new recruits in to a real form of local democracy. I hope that we can go forward in this way, and the suggestions of the Association of Neighbourhood Councils offer a way forward along these lines.
An extremely well attended conference on this subject took place 10 days ago in Church House. Though it was Cup Final day and the last weekend before


most of the local elections, it was well attended, largely by young people. While I am not suggesting that there was complete unanimity of view, there was an overwhelming demand for adequate representation at the grass roots level to ensure that local views are always ventilated before any of the bodies that are established under any legislation that we introduce. I hope that statutory recognition will be given to the right of consultation to bodies at this grass roots level.
I wish to stress the absurdity of some of the divisions of function that are being proposed. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir T. Brinton) referred to some of them. Hon. Members with experience of the work of public health inspectors will appreciate the difficulties they face. All along they have sensibly argued that environmental health matters should be under the control of one authority. As the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir T. Brinton) said, in many cases it is clearly a local matter. Therefore, it should be the responsibility of the more local authority.
Unfortunately, the White Paper is just about as unclear as it could be about the whole subject. Some of the responsibilities are to be given to the county and some are to be retained at the district level. There seems no very obvious reason why that should be so. Indeed, the clean air functions, which have always been the responsibility, until now of the more local authority, are transferred to the county. As far as I know, the county has no staff available for this kind of job—certainly not the existing counties; but I am aware that we are making new authorities.
Nevertheless, this is an example, among many others, of a complete division of responsibility in a very area where, for reality and sanity of operation, the whole of this area of work should be brought together. In opening the debate the Minister made an appeal for good management. He is making a very bad start with this separation and division.
I understand that discussions are likely to take place with the Association of Public Health Inspectors and with other bodies on matters such as these. But we have to test the effectiveness and reality

of the proposals on practical issues of this kind and how they are likely to work out.
A further point of special interest to me and to some of my colleagues is the position about national park administration. I was delighted to find that my right hon. Friend, in a White Paper published more than a year ago, gave the assurance that the recommendation of the Maud Commission in this matter would be carried out and that at long last we should have a distinct administrative responsibility for national parks. But that has now been thrown overboard, in spite of eloquent pleas from the Government side of the House on this issue in the past. We have been given the slight sop of being assured that the whole matter is to be reviewed by a special committee. I suppose that we have to thank the Minister for that modest approach. But this is yet another area in which the White Paper, unhappily, has not been of the standard that we had hoped for. Again in this area, as in the rather more urgent areas to which I have referred, the White Paper offers no solution to our problems but only a very faltering step forward.

6.3 p.m.

Mr. James Ramsden: In the interests of brevity, I shall not follow the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop), nor will I spend time complimenting my right hon. Friend, who may take it that where I do not explicitly criticise his proposals, they have my support. I congratulate him on his presentation of the White Paper.
I make only two points. The first concerns parish councils, for whom I did some work on the Committee stage of the last Local Government Bill in 1957 and since then.
Paragraphs 39 and 40 of the White Paper, foreshadowing, as they do, a reduced status for parish councils in metropolitan areas—I stress "in metropolitan areas"—have caused some concern, especially in Yorkshire. The metropolitan areas designated in Yorkshire differ somewhat from the others in that they include stretches of rural countryside and these embrace some 240 rural parishes. There are only 330 rural parishes all told in metropolitan areas, so Yorkshire has the bulk of them. It is not clear from the White Paper whether


they are to continue and, if so, in what form.
I listened very carefully to what my right hon. Friend said today, and I was still in the dark. I very much hope that we can have some reassurance from my hon. Friend to the effect that existing rural parishes, or parish meetings, even if in metropolitan areas, will continue with their present powers, because, as the hon. Member for South Shields said, they have an important pant to play and should continue to be allowed to play it.
My second point is about the effects of my right hon. Friend's proposals upon my constituency. Under these proposals, Harrogate, Knaresborough and most of Nidderdale would go into Metropolitan Area 6, in the district of Leeds. We shall therefore lose our councils. We shall have to accept very much reduced representation, and what remains of our representation will be on a body whose main interests are urban and industrial, not residential or agricultural or to do with tourism and the promotion of amenities, as are our own.
Therefore, we hope that before he brings forward legislation, my right hon. Friend will change this and respect the unanimous local desire to go into County Area No. 5, to the North, whose interests much more closely resemble our own. Moreover, they wish to have us associated with them and have said so to my right hon. Friend in the representations they have recently made to him. They have made a point to which I wish briefly to draw his attention. Paragraph 32 of the White Paper states:
The boundaries of these areas …
—that is, metropolitan areas—
… should include all the main area, or areas, of continuous development and any adjacent area into which continuous development will extend".
The North Riding draw attention to this, and the fact is that if one looks to the South of my constituency one finds along the valley of the Wharfe, a statutory green belt about eight miles wide between us and the industrial West Riding. There, or thereabouts, is the natural boundary and, as the North Riding County Council say, this green belt is an area of considerable charm and it is unthinkable that continuous development should extend into it.
According to the present proposals, continuous development may well extend not only into it but beyond it into the predominantly rural area which constitutes my constituency. Having listened to my right hon. Friend's remarks earlier this afternoon about the importance of avoiding massive urban sprawl, I can only say that to keep the boundary where it is now proposed would be an invitation to massive urban sprawl. That is the position to the south of my constituency.
Looking to the north, one sees my constituency sticking out into County Area 5 like a massive promontory, which I am tempted to call Cape Walker, though in fairness I ought to refer to it as Cape Maud. To redraw the boundary, so as to put this promontory into Northern Area 5, where there is a community of interest, would be tidy and logical, and in line with the unanimous wishes of my constituents.
I will not say any more now, although I could do so, because my right hon. Friend has been good enough to engage in a dialogue which has been very friendly and which, I hope, will be fruitful. In my election address I drew the attention of my constituents to this problem, which arose out of the Maud Report, and indicated what my attitude would be. I have never known them feel more strongly or more unanimously about any issue. I refer to all the councils and representative bodies—the Chamber of Trade, the National Council of Women and so on—and the many individuals who have taken the trouble to write. We are all looking to my right hon. Friend to demonstrate his good will and good sense and to alter these boundaries in the sense we all desire.

6.10 p.m.

Dr. David Owen: No one can be under any illusion that we are discussing the pattern of local government which is likely to stay for at least a century, perhaps longer. It clearly behoves us as members of a national Parliament to try to look beyond purely constituency interests and judge the proposals as a whole. The House will forgive me if in the short time available I concentrate on the far South-West Region, a region which has caused the House much concern over many years.
The far South-West has high unemployment, poor communications and deep-seated regional problems. Therefore, any pattern of local government which is to be introduced for the far South-West will have to be judged by how it matches up against some of the problems which the region faces.
I contend that we are being asked to endorse a pattern of local government reform for the far South-West which is already out of date and which will be unable to respond to the challenges which we shall face for decades ahead. This particularly concerns Plymouth's role, In 1967, after much argument and a great deal of difficulty about getting the counties of Cornwall and Devon and the cities of Plymouth and Exeter to see the problems of the region as a whole, we were presented with a regional plan by the South-West Regional Economic Planning Council, which I think managed to achieve a degree of unanimity of approach which was almost unprecedented in the South-West. Amongst the many recommendations made by the Planning Council it is no exaggeration to say that one of the key recommendations was that Plymouth should become one of the growth centres of the far South-West.
Plymouth is a city of a quarter of a million people. The House will forgive me if I mention that the key thing which Plymouth is being asked to swallow is that a city of a quarter of a million people should be ruled from Exeter, which is 42 miles away. We are being asked to accept that the Tamar, which has been the traditional boundary between Cornwall and Devon for all these years, should continue to be the boundary. Practically every sensible planning argument is being overthrown purely and simply, it seems, because of a firm determination to maintain county boundaries.
No one can look at this region and this area without being struck by the fact that the geography has been dramatically changed over the last decade. Perhaps in no way has this been more marked than by the emergence of the Tamar Bridge, which has radically changed Plymouth's whole growth and development. We cannot look at the question of local government in Plymouth without taking cognisance of the Tamar Bridge and its impact and effect.
The census returns show that, whereas in 1961 only 39 per cent. of the working population of Saltash found their primary job in Plymouth, by 1966 this proportion had risen to nearly 50 per cent. If the latest census returns were available I think it would be found that the proportion is now much nearer 60 per cent. So the pattern is now completely different.
None of us in Plymouth wants to take any more of Cornwall than is absolutely necessary on planning grounds. I would not hold to any particular boundary, but I believe that we cannot look at Plymouth without looking just straight across the Tamar at Saltash, Torpoint and the most immediate areas. We must try to convince the people of Saltash and Torpoint that their interests do not lie 47 and 49 miles away in Truro.
The simple logistic problem of being represented so far away is one of which I perhaps have unique experience in that my mother is an Alderman of Devon County Council and must travel 42 miles a day each way from Plymouth to Exeter for every single sub-committee meeting of Devon County Council. These are the sorts of practical problems that the Government must examine.
It was striking that earlier in the debate my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) singled out the case of Plymouth, but my right hon. Friend is not alone amongst national spokesmen in so doing. In another place Lord Redcliffe-Maud also pointed to the problem Plymouth faces in fitting into any pattern of local government. Baroness Sharp, who has very wide experience of local government matters, especially in view of her departmental experience and membership of the Royal Commission, said this in another place:
… if you throw Plymouth into Devon you arrest and cripple a great deal of the enormous efforts that have been made in that part of the country … it is a piece of sentimental nonsense to say that the Tamar is still the Western boundary of Plymouth, because it is not."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords; 29th March, 1971, c. 1122–3.]
We all know that it is not. Cornishmen know it too. Sensible Cornishmen, when they can get away from the rather emotional argument, know, too, that Plymouth's strength and economic development are crucial for the whole of the region.
From the point of view of bringing new industry down to Plymouth, one of the key problems we have had to face for decades has been Plymouth's dependence on the dockyard and the need to attract other industry to Plymouth.
This question must be considered from the point of view of both sides of the Tamar. This was recognised in the demarcation of the development area. The Saltash-Torpoint area was deliberately put outside the development area because of the attachment of those towns to Plymouth. When the Labour Party were in Government and we made Plymouth an intermediate area, we likewise took into account Saltash and Torpoint. When hon. Members opposite extended the intermediate area they were persuaded that logically Tavistock fitted into the Plymouth intermediate area.
I am not saying that industrial planning and economic growth arguments are the only considerations. However, in view of the immense distances that must be travelled, and in view of the industrial planning and economic growth arguments, we must ask why the Government have come up with these proposals for a new Devon county area nearly 29 per cent. of whose population will be from Plymouth.
The Under-Secretary who is to reply—the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine)—and part of whose constituency is in Plymouth, has had a great deal to do with the preparation of the White Paper. I must ask him to look again at this matter. We all recognise that, whatever our arguments, we want local government reform. Most hon. Members recognise that the Government's proposals for two-tier Government, whether we like them or not, will now come about.
The question therefore is: can we have some modification in those areas where some of the worst anomalies will arise from the present rigid maintenance of county boundaries? Plymouth has produced proposals for a new authority—a two-tier authority—to be called, possibly, "Tamarside". I believe that it is a viable authority. It certainly is viable in terms of population. The boundaries however are not at all fixed in my mind. If the argument for retaining some of the suggested Cornish area has very strong attachment in Cornwall, I would go along with it.
The population of the proposed new "Tamarside" would be about 346,000. That would fit within all the categories of population limits that the Government have put into the White Paper. This would be composed of 250,000 citizens of Plymouth, about 58,000 from Devon, and 30,000 from Cornwall. The rateable value of the new authority would be £13¾ million, as calculated at 1st April, 1970. It would reduce the rateable value of Cornwall by less than £1 million. I believe that this is a viable proposition.
Three other counties would under the Government's proposals have smaller populations. Twenty-three metropolitan districts would be smaller. Eleven of the metropolitan districts suggested are smaller even than the present population of Plymouth. So, judged by the Government's own criteria, it is viable.
Under the Government's proposals only one other county borough will have to travel to its administrative area as great a distance as will Plymouth—that is Barrow-in-Furness, which has a population of only 63,000 and must travel 77 miles to Carlisle—and more's the pity for that. Next comes Grimsby, with 96,000 people, travelling about 36 miles to Lincoln. My right hon. Friend has already mentioned the immense difficulties which the people of Grimsby will face in terms of both distance and geography.

Mr. Michael Jopling: The hon. Gentleman has referred to Cumberland and spoken of the distance which people in Barrow would have to go to Carlisle. Why does he think that Carlisle will be the capital of Area 9? Would there not be good reason for having the capital somewhere south of Carlisle?

Dr. Owen: I must not go into the intricacies of an area which the hon. Gentleman knows far better than I do. My submission is that Plymouth is the natural focus of the economic and social life of a catchment area which includes part of Devon and part of Cornwall. It is the city in which I was born, in which I have lived, and part of which I have the honour to represent in the House now, but I make my plea not just on constituency grounds.
It is natural that there should be a rejection of the Government's proposals by the citizens of Plymouth, and that


that rejection should be vehement and strong. It is natural, too, for people in Cornwall to wish to keep their own boundaries. The same reaction is natural for the citizens of Devon, although I think that they feel less strongly about it. But we in the House are setting the pattern of local government for a long time ahead, and we must look at these proposals in that light.
By any of the relevant criteria—in terms of uniting town and country, in terms of recreation, shopping, travel to work, employment, and in terms of the social pattern of life and work in the community—the new area which the City have proposed, which would have districts and would be a two-tier authority, accepting the Government's proposals, makes logical sense. In no way should Saltash, Torpoint and its area be governed from 47 and 49 miles away in Truro, and, likewise, a city of 250,000 people should not be governed from 42 miles away in Exeter.
We have a polytechnic, which was placed in Plymouth by the Labour Government for regional purposes, and we have a new regional hospital planned in Plymouth, and we have the proposals for area health boards to follow local government boundaries. All this, and the way in which we have seen the pattern of economic development proceed in this region in the past few years, points logically to an exception being made in the Government's proposals and the creation of a new area. I hope that the Secretary of State will look at Plymouth's scheme sympathetically.

6.22 p.m.

Mr. Peter Blaker: The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen) speaks for a county borough, and I think it significant that so many of my hon. Friends here today represent county boroughs outside metropolitan areas. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State knows that it is in these authorities that more anxiety about the Government's proposals has been expressed than in any other group of authorities. These anxieties are allayed only to a modest extent by the thought that they will have their own mayors and councils. I have found that when people are reminded of that the thought tends rather to exasperate than

to pacify, because it implies that the only people who are concerned about the Government's proposals in county boroughs are those who themselves seek one day to wear the mayoral chain, and this is far from the truth.
The causes of anxiety in county boroughs are far more profound. I list them as three: loss of powers, remoteness, and—this applies particularly in my constituency—the possible financial burden. Many county boroughs had an example of what they fear may happen in the recent police reorganisation. This is certainly true of Blackpool and other county boroughs which I know. The police reorganisation a few years ago, which is constantly mentioned to me by constituents, involved not only a loss of powers and the problem of remoteness but also a loss of efficiency and an increase in costs.
The powers left to existing county boroughs under the Government's proposals will be less than those now possessed by a rural district council. I hope that my right hon. Friend, after the discussions which he is having and after considering the representations which he has said he is prepared to receive, will find it possible to leave more powers with the lower tier, and I hope that he will by his legislation ensure that that is done.
My right hon. Friend spoke earlier about the possibility of delegation of power by county councils. I am not sure that that is good enough. I am not convinced that it is impossible for him to discriminate in the sense of ensuring that greater powers are left with the larger district councils in the counties. I see no particular merit in tidy-mindedness for its own sake.
The anxieties in resort county boroughs are as great as those in any other. In the resorts, municipal enterprise has always played a bigger part than it has in other local authority areas. The Blackpool illuminations, for example, are provided by the authority; they cost £180,000 a year. Without those illuminations, the economy of Blackpool would collapse like a pricked balloon. I could give many other examples of municipal activities, in entertainment, publicity, car parks and so on, which are necessarily more ambitious in a resort than elsewhere.
For obvious reasons, the administration of the Shops Act is more important


in a resort than elsewhere. Theatre licensing is more important. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will be able to say something about the problems of the resorts, and tell us whether it will be possible for resort towns to retain their particular resort functions in their own hands.
But I must warn my hon. Friend that, if he can give that assurance, or something on those lines, that will not be the end of the story, because anxiety will then arise about how the resorts will pay for those functions on top of the rate which they will have to pay towards the county. But, at least, such an assurance will go some way.
Now, the question of remoteness. The passage on page 6 of the White Paper has already been quoted:
… above all else, a genuine local democracy implies that decisions should be taken—and should be seen to be taken—as locally as possible.
The impression which the county boroughs have is that remoteness will be increased by the Government's proposals, and this is a special anxiety where the county town is likely to be elsewhere. One worry in the minds of my constituents is simply this: If the Government's proposals go through as they stand in the White Paper, will the citizen have to go 20 miles or so for help in problems concerned with education or with personal social services? Perhaps my hon. Friend will explain how the Government reconcile the passage which I have just quoted with their actual proposals for an area such as the proposed Area 10 in which my constituency lies.
Third—this is of particuar concern to my constituency—there is the possible financial burden. In a few weeks, the Government will produce a Green Paper, which will be studied with close interest. But the possible financial burden is of great importance in influencing the attitude of my constituents now towards the Government's proposals on structure, and this is a matter which I know both my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friend will agree no Conservative Minister can afford, or would wish, to take lightly. The cost of local government is of special concern in the resort towns, because they have many small businesses for which the rate burden is of particular importance. They also have many people of

retirement age. Twenty per cent. of the population of Blackpool are over 65. They come to Blackpool and other resort towns not only because they are agreeable towns but because on the whole the rate burden has been light. My town clerk and borough treasurer estimate that if the Government's proposals are adopted as they stand they would involve an increase in the rate burden for the average ratepayer in Blackpool of 19 new pence in the pound, a formidable increase. If that estimate is accurate, it gives cause for the greatest concern. I will send my right hon. Friend the calculations I have just received. I hope that he will examine them and be able to show that some of the anxieties are unnecessary.
The anxieties to which I have wanted to refer are the inadequate powers that I believe the White Paper proposes for county boroughs; the increase in remoteness which I fear the proposals will involve for county boroughs, unless the Government can say more about their ideas; and, in my constituency, the danger of extra cost.
After consultation with other councils, my council has worked out alternative proposals, within the principles laid down in the White Paper, which it believes would avoid those problems. It proposes to send them to my right hon. Friend very soon. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will be able to say in winding up the debate that my right hon. Friend will consider them personally and sympathetically.

6.32 p.m.

Mr. Simon Mahon: Very often in the House we debate the affairs of other nations and events across the sea, and very often we have two days in which to do it. It would not have been inappropriate to have two days to discuss the very important matters that we are now debating which affect our own country so vitally. We are all going rather quickly at the things we want to say, and I am sure that none of us feel that he has said precisely what he wanted to say to safeguard and satisfy those whom he represents.
As one of the few vice-presidents of the Association of Municipal Corporations in the House, I hope that there will be nothing but the fullest possible consultation, and that the undue haste in


the House today will not be witnessed in the consultations with the A.M.C.
Society is becoming more complex, and the more complex it becomes the more we need local government that is efficient, compassionate and essentially local. As society becomes bigger and more powerful, my people, many of them humble, ordinary working-class people, become rather afraid of it. They get a great deal of comfort from local government.
I shall not speak particularly about my own constituency, but I want to praise local government and say how valuable it has been and will be. We shall all have to make some sacrifices, and we know precisely what they are. Let us not denigrate in any way what a great force local government has been and what a great contribution has been made by those who have been elected and have given valiant service for so long.
I want to make an appeal to the Government on behalf of those who are working in local government, who have done so much, sometimes for little pay, and have been very loyal. They have worked in places like my constituency and have stayed in them when they could have gone to more salubrious parts of the country, staying out of simple dedication to the people for whom they were working. Those standards must be maintained. On no account must the varying levels of local government put one man who is serving local government as an official in a position inferior to another. The organisation of local government services has high traditions of democratic practice, and I hope that we shall not see two levels of local government service entirely different from the traditions of the great service we have known.
People talk about size, population and area. It will not be by size, population or area that the new authorities will be judged, but by the improvement in the quality of people's life. We have seen changes in places like Merseyside. The hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) mentioned something that we, too, were affected by. An efficient police force was taken away from us, and we were given another which is not nearly

as efficient. It is more costly, and it has yet to prove itself. It is in the light of that sort of thing that we are looking at the reorganisation and asking the questions that we must ask.
The only way in which we can achieve the quality of life that we want is by being able to recruit the right kind of men as officials, people of the high standard and calibre we have had before. Paragraph 8 of the White Paper has been quoted three times. The hon. Member for Blackpool, South was one of those who referred to the paragraph, which speaks about genuine local democracy implying that decisions should be taken locally and be seen to be taken locally. On Merseyside I have seen great tower blocks going up under successive Governments in areas where there were slums all over the place. Mr. Speaker, with his knowledge of Merseyside, will know them. They were some of the most vicious slums in the country. They were knocked down and tower blocks were put up. Everyone was consulted about them—bishops, architects, engineers—everyone but the people who were condemned to live in them. That is the sort of thing that goes on, and therefore my appeal is for local government to remain local. People who by virtue of their work, history, traditions, family and so on have to stay in a district may vote in it, but see other people from outside the district, giving them less than the best.
I am having to speak about the matter so quickly that it is almost impossible to do so properly.
Housing, planning, social security and social services should be as tight as my fist. They cannot be divorced from one another. The closer they are together the better it will be for the family. Family and local government go hand in hand. We have seen attacks on family life in the House right, left and centre in the past five or six years. Modern society is attacking it. If the Minister does the right thing today and in the future he can help the family to gain more dignity. We in the House accept wrong, low and inequitable standards too easily.
Why should a young married couple on the housing list of any local authority have to wait for a house five, six or seven years, until their marriage is destroyed? Why should it not be possible for a new housing authority, looking at planning,


social security and social services together, to say to such young people who are looking for homes "We will give you a house on your wedding day"? That is good government.
We hope that under the new arrangements we can give sustenance to family life. People in local government are dealing every day with the break-up of marriages. If we could do the right thing in the right place, we could overcome many of the problems we are trying to solve.
I want to make an appeal to the Secretary of State on behalf of the voluntary societies. They are not mentioned in the White Paper. Many of us have worked a long time with the voluntary societies—for hospitals, hostels and other organisations like the Apostleship of the Sea. They all have their contribution to make in the new set-up. They are not mentioned in the White Paper, but the country would be much poorer if we forgot the contribution that they are making and can make in the future.
I think that the Secretary of State is right in his adjudication on Merseyside. It would have been a great mistake to put the County Borough of Bootle and the County Borough of Liverpool in the same set-up. We are rather pleased that he has given us the opportunity of land and advantages coming from the association with Crosby, Formby, Litherland, Aintree, Altcar, Aughton, Downholland, Ince Blundell, Lydiate, Maghull, Melling, Netherton, Sefton, and Thornton.
Of course, if there were an election in that area tomorrow the Labour Party would not be in control. I have been a Labour representative all my adult life, but, we must not be insular about these advances. We are adjudicating on the past and planning for the future, and anyone who plans for the future on the basis of partisanship will be doing the country an injustice.

6.42 p.m.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: The hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Simon Mahon) has made a good speech, which sets the right tone for this kind of debate. I, too, have promised to be brief, and I will be. I am the first Member from Kent to speak in the debate. I am, indeed, the senior Member from Kent among those present in that

I have served in this House the longest. I shall discuss matters which affect the county. We shall have an opportunity of discussing local government finance on the b forthcoming Green Paper and I hope then to speak about new methods of evolving local government finance.
The hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen) spoke about people having to go 40 miles. Many of my constituents travel well over that distance daily to Maidstone, which is the centre of local government in Kent. It is plain that in Kent the first-tier authority will be the county authority. That will be based, as it always has been, on Maidstone, although the most important city in the county is, without doubt, Canterbury. My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) is sitting beside me now, lending me support.
Kent is divided into two halves—East Kent and West Kent. There is a genuine problem in East Kent in that people there feel that they are too far away from Maidstone. Whatever powers remain with the first-tier authority, it is of the greatest possible importance that we consider how those powers can be best delegated by the authority to more local authorities. I ask Maidstone to consider carefully the proposition that the responsibility for the main strategy of planning in East Kent should be at Canterbury and that many of the social service, education and other functions should be delegated to Canterbury.
This is an important aspect, because those who serve the first-tier authority must be able to be fairly and easily recruited and their expenses met. It is essential that they should not have to travel long distances. The county councillors from the Isle of Thanet are nearly all retired men and women. I want to see the younger generation—many young people are ready to do so—being able to serve without having to travel these long distances and it is therefore essential to delegate functions to East Kent and West Kent respectively.
Secondly, I think virtually all of those who will speak for Kent, either in this debate or on some other occasion, will make it plain that we want to see more second-tier authorities have rather more powers than is proposed. At present, of the 25 main functions it appears that 13 are to go to the first tier, nine appear to


be concurrent and only three appear to be going to the districts. These proportions must be changed substantially. What we want to see, therefore, first of all, is large district councils. The picture is fairly clear in Kent, certainly in East Kent. We shall almost certainly have one authority for Thanet, with a population of 100,000. There will be another for the Canterbury-Whitstable area, another for Dover and another for Folkestone and Hythe. Each will have about 100,000 people. They will be powerful second-tier authorities with plenty of experience. I want to see local planning and development control as their responsibility, together with responsibility for highways, traffic management and the control of the traffic lights. This would leave the question of the strategic planning of traffic routes to the first-tier authority.
Thirdly, I want to see house building and housing management with the second-tier authorities. They should also have responsibility for food and drugs, clean air, refuse collection and so on, and probably some concurrent method for matters such as coast protection, playing fields and community services. There is clearly need for the provision of personal social services and for a great deal of licensing to be vested in the second-tier authorities.
I am satisfied that we can arrive at agreement. It is important to recognise that there is this sense of distance in Kent, which will be by far the largest non-metropolitan county, with nearly one and a half million people. The original proposal for Kent was to have two unitary authorities. Now we are to have only one, and it is therefore vital to ensure that, first, there is delegation of duties and, secondly, extra responsibilities for the second-tier authorities.

6.48 p.m.

Mr. John Forrester: A remarkable change has come over the attitude of the British people towards the reform of local government. Whether they have been converted or brainwashed or whether this is just another sign of apathy, I cannot say. Whatever it is, I think that we should not impose upon them sweeping reforms of local government without adequate discussion and examination. There is, I am afraid, still a feeling in many parts of the country that the White Paper was

hastily drawn and that the authorities are being rushed into decisions. There is also a widespread feeling that the Secretary of State has made up his mind and that it does not really matter what one says because he intends to carry out his proposals anyway. I hope that his mind is not closed to the extent that some people have been led to believe.
Whilst one cannot ignore historical associations, I cannot really believe that the ancient county boundaries have any particular relevance to reform of local government in the second half of the twentieth century. While the Maud boundary proposals may have had serious imperfections, they were at least a real attempt after detailed research to bring together communities with a common interest and to put them into units of a suitable size. The Minister could do worse than to look again at the Maud boundary proposals and marry them to his two-tier suggestions. The present county boundaries are very largely meaningless.
If we take Staffordshire, of which I am a representative, there is no community of interest between North Staffordshire and South Staffordshire. To those in the North the South is just another world. In many cases we do not even speak the same language. We have to find a common B.B.C. type language to understand each other.

Mrs. Lena Jeger: Try French.

Mr. Forrester: We shall have to try French if we get into the Common Market. The south of the county is on the doorstep of Birmingham and it naturally looks in that direction. In the North, if we look anywhere we look towards Manchester. There are no cultural ties between us. There are two distinct communities in North and South Staffordshire, and I would ask the Minister to have a look at a proposal to split Staffordshire into two separate county councils. If we are forced to join together this would be a shotgun marriage for which there is no justification. No doubt we would join together and work for the common good, but this would not be a union of like souls who had rushed into one another's arms.

Mr. Patrick Cormack (Cannock): I have just come in and heard what the


hon. Gentleman has been saying. I know, and I am sure he does, that the county council of Staffordshire takes the opposite view from that which he is putting forward. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would like that to be made evident.

Mr. Forrester: I am sure that the Minister will take note of that. I was aware of that fact and was not supporting the county council in its representations. I have the consent of my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Cant) and Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) to say that we think this is a reasonable and feasible proposition for Staffordshire. These two authorities would have roughly 450,000 people each. We believe they would be viable. After all, there are proposals for 13 county councils in the White Paper which would have populations of less than 500,000. If it is feared that one authority may dominate this kind of smaller local county council, it would be possible to partition those authorities on the basis of their older boundaries or of parliamentary constituencies.
I was once in favour of the Maud proposals for a unitary authority. I became rather disenchanted when it became clear that power, or democracy, was to be moved away from the people who really mattered. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) took the neighbourhood councils to heart, but with no powers for such councils I was left completely cold. The remoteness of Maud is a feature of the present proposals.
We have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen) who said that people would be 40 miles away from the centre. In Staffordshire, depending on where the county city would be, while people would not be 40 miles away, there would be considerable distances involved for some. Ordinary folk would have no chance of identifying themselves with the major seat of government in their county. Local government would cease to be local. Councillors who had to travel such great distances would not have the contact or control that they now have. The officers would become more important and the elected representatives

less so. I feel that for North Staffordshire at least the Maud boundary proposals are substantially correct because they gather together people with a community of interests. They were perhaps a little large.
I ask the Minister to have another look at the Maud proposals based on city regions. In this case, with the two-tier concept, I ask him to give his attention to the powers which are to be offered to district councils. I was intrigued by the list put forward by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir T. Brinton). I thought that if I added just two other powers we would have transferred all powers from the county councils to the district councils and set up a new system of unitary authority. The powers being offered to the county boroughs are an insult—housing and refuse collection. The county council will even tell them what to do with the refuse when it is collected.
What kind of people will serve on district councils? The local town halls will be drained of all men and women of quality, whether elected representatives or appointed officials. The three personal services of education, social services and libraries which are to be retained by the metropolitan district councils ought to be left with the district councils, especially the county borough councils of today which have a population of quarter of a million. By allowing the metropolitan district councils to retain these services the Minister has admitted that quarter of a million or even less is a viable unit. I know that my right hon. Friend did not agree and that I am apparently on the wrong side over this.
The Minister agreed that metropolitan borough district councils could adequately provide a service for education, and I think he is right. It does not seem right that authorities which may have 40,000 people should have exactly the same powers as a town or city with 300,000 people. Some services could be operated on an excepted district basis. Such a concession might even influence many small authorities to join together to acquire these extra powers. I do not think that in education it can be argued that it is necessary to have a very large authority to provide the necessary services. After all, the White Paper has


great variations in population. Unless the Minister is convinced that these powers ought to be given directly to more authorities then we shall have fewer local education authorities in future.
These personal services are to be controlled by remote bureaucratic bodies, whereas they ought to be as local as possible. A local authority with a quarter of a million population can provide the necessary education services up to the age of 18. There are special groups of children who need education over that age and that need not be provided on a county basis. Large authorities will be faced with different kinds of secondary education within their borders, perhaps a comprehensive system with a sixth form college basis, an all-through college system, perhaps a selective system based on grammar schools.
The problem they will face is whether they are to run two or three different kinds of secondary education within their borders or whether there will be another upheaval of education with the whole thing in the melting pot and another new system coming out. My education authority has been as good as most. It will have nothing to gain from being part of a larger authority. I wonder why we are out to destroy what has already proved its worth.
The same is true of the social services. These are personal social services and cannot be administered from some remote base. There will still need to be local inspectors and local facilities of all kinds. I am sure that they are better administered in the locality and the county boroughs at least ought to have these facilities given to them. There is evidence that small authorities should amalgamate. That is not to suggest that the major authorities have been inefficient or neglecful in their duties. There is a need for marrying the interests of town and country but I believe that this can be done without destroying local pride, initiative and endeavour. The biggest scourge of modern times is this slavish adherence to the notion that if it is bigger it must be better or cheaper or more efficient. This is a fallacy which we have been "conned" into accepting I hope that the Minister will not be "conned" in this way when he presents his final paper.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Tom Boardman: I have some sympathy with the conclusions of the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mr. Forrester), although I do not agree entirely with the way in which he reached them. I accept the general principle of the two-tier system and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State upon it. However, I regret that he found it necessary to use the term "county" for the new authority. It has caused misunderstanding in some of the cities, which is unfortunate.
I propose to concentrate on certain functions, because it is with their division that I am concerned. I take the City of Leicester as an example, not with the intention of being parochial, but because it illustrates the point and at the same time expresses the view on the city council. The City of Leicester has a population of 280,000 and a rateable value of £15½ million. It is therefore larger than half of the metropolitan districts to which it is proposed to give much greater functions. Paragraph 12 of the White Paper says that units of 250,000 may be considered large enough to provide the base for the functions of education and the personal social services.
Why is Leicester and cities of a similar size not considered capable of carrying out these functions? The Minister makes a distinction in paragraph 31 of the White Paper and I hope I shall have time to return to this. There is a feeling that a city of that size, with its great experience of handling much broader functions, that it is inappropriate for it to be cut to the size of a district authority which may, in some part of the county, be as small as 40,000 people.
I have doubts about whether local planning, which depends on detailed knowledge of local conditions, can be effectively performed without local staff. I take the point made by the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) that it will be difficult efficiently to operate a unified staff. There must be some division of loyalties and perhaps of responsibilities. There may be some conflicts within authorities when the staffs are answerable to others. I hope that my right hon. Friend will give further consideration to this matter.
Turning to the matters on which I wish mainly to comment—education and personal social services—I remind my


right hon. Friend of the paragraph in the White Paper which has been quoted several times today, paragraph 8. I do not propose to quote it again. By transferring the function of education from the large cities to the county authority there is a failure to recognise the inevitable distinction between a large city and a rural area. I ask my right hon. Friend to consult the Secretary of State for Education and Science on the different requirements of education in a large urban area for nursery, and further education and education for the handicapped and, above all, education for immigrant pupils in cities with special immigrant problems. In Leicester, 14 per cent. of the school pupils are immigrant children. They present special problems. They have a special call on the resources of the city. An understanding has been developed among the teachers and the community. Would it be possible for the special education requirements of an urban society to be fully recognised if the city did not have the educational powers which it now possesses?
There is a conflict between the types of education which have been developed in the city and in the county. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consult the Secretary of State for Education on this very difficult problem. The urban problems are special and are recognised as such by the elected representatives of the city and by the city teachers.
It is difficult to divorce the personal social services from housing. To do so runs contrary to the Seebohm Report. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State suggested that the alternative was to move responsibility for housing to the county authority and unite housing and personal social services at that level. I suggest that the transfer should be in the reverse direction. The responsibility for the personal social services should go to the housing authority when that authority is of a size in excess of 250,000, as in Leicester. The question of uniting these two functions is very important and should be done at district level for urban communities of that size.
We have had a massive slum clearance programme in Leicester. There are 28,000 council houses in the city. We have the problem of a very large immigrant community. All these matters put great strains on housing and automatically

create many personal problems which call for the help and assistance of the personal social services. There should be rethinking on these problems which are recognised by Members representing constituencies of the type which I represent. I am very conscious of them because probably I have more council houses in my constituency than any of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I believe there is a need to unite these two functions in one authority.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State justified avoiding a division of education and personal social services between the urban and rural communities because he did not wish to perpetuate the distinctions between these two societies. But these distinctions exist, just as there are distinctions between boys and girls. They are a fact of life. I do not suggest that one is any better than the other but they need different treatment in many respects. It would be wrong to attempt to apply to a city of the size and with the problems of Leicester a solution which might be appropriate and right in rural communities.
I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend will again reflect on the functions question. I remind him of the words in paragraph 13 of the White Paper:
… where the arguments are evenly balanced their judgment"—
that is the Government's judgment—
will be given in favour of responsibility being exercised at the more local level".
I therefore hope that these functions will be exercised at the district level in large urban areas and large cities.

7.10 p.m.

Mrs. Lena Jeger: I will confine myself to one narrow but important point. Paragraph 24 of the White Paper says:
The Government will consider the future responsibilities for water supply, sewerage and sewage disposal in the light of the report on these and related matters by the Central Advisory Water Committee …
We now have that Report before us. Therein are contained many friendly cross-references to the Working Party on Sewage Disposal, in which I must declare the interest of my chairmanship.
One of the main conclusions of the Report of the Central Advisory Water Committee is that it is essential that a


comprehensive water management plan be drawn up for every river basin. The Report suggests tentatively that there should be ten regional water authorities with four main functions: river management, water supply, sewage disposal, and planning. I make no apology for raising this point today because, at a time when we are reconsidering the functions of local government, it is essential to take this subject within the context of local government reform.
When we were doing the preparatory work for our Report, which was published under the title of "Taken for Granted", we found, in going round the country, such disparities of standards, activities and finance, that it was quite clear that the present situation was unsatisfactory. Authorities ranged from eight million people to fewer than 1,500 and expenditure varied between 5s. 11d. in the £ to an old-fashioned penny in the £.
The interesting relevance of this to local government reform is that the local authorities which spend the most do not always get the cleanest environment. There may be upriver pollution, or a dirty beach in an area which spends a lot of money because the tide may bring sewage across the bay from an area which spends little on sewage treatment.
We were forced to the conclusion that water is a part of geography—it flows through and over any man-drawn lines on maps—and that, while local government reform is taking place, the opportunity must be taken to deal with this problem. We suggested that river authorities should be reconstituted, renamed, and given the necessary legal powers to control discharges to the sea within the three-mile limit and discharges to estuaries.
I was glad that the Central Advisory Water Committee came so near to our own thinking, partly because of the growing public interest in dealing with pollution, and partly because of the increasing water shortage, which will be one of the big problems of the future. We are already using over 90 gallons of water per head per day, and the insatiable, demands of industry, agriculture and the rising standard of living will severely increase that demand. I was further encouraged to find that the Seventh

Annual Report of the Water Resources Board contained a similar recommendation in paragraph 210:
The two operations of providing water for use and disposing of it after use are clearly inter-related and inseparable. The importance of this will grow in the future as re-use of water in rivers plays an increasing part in meeting needs.
With the support of the Water Resources Board, and encouraged by the first Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution under Sir Eric Ashby, I hope that the Minister will act on this consensus of advice. The Royal Commission said in paragraph 132:
We regard three issues as particularly important:
(i) the integration under a single authority in each river region of the administration of rivers and sewage treatment;
In case any hon. Members think that this is not important, I remind them that in dry weather more than half the flow of the Orwell, the Thame, the Don and the Avon at Stratford consist of returned—I hope well-treated—effluent. I do not want to discourage the teetotal propensities of any hon. Member, but it is likely that a glass of water in London will have been in and out of somebody else four or five times. I mention this only to suggest that the quality of our river water is a matter of great concern.
I look forward to an opportunity being given for a much fuller discussion of this important subject in the House. I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will see how well disciplined I am in making such a brief intervention. I hope it will result in some of these papers being taken out of their pigeon holes, where they have not been for long, and that we shall soon have some news on this matter.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady has been so well-disciplined that I propose to call another hon. Lady. I hope that she will be equally well-disciplined.

7.16 p.m.

Dame Joan Vickers (Plymouth, Devon-port): I congratulate the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Jeger) on her speech. I know that she has taken a great interest in this subject. I shall be brief because the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen) has already put forward a great many of my points.
I thank the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) for the sympathy which he showed to the city of Plymouth. I hope that my right hon. Friend will show the same sympathy. I am a little nervous about his attitude, because I know his excellent powers of organisation. Some of his friends organised matters so well that I was the only Conservative Member to vote for Plympton and Plymstock to go into Plymouth. So this is why I am a little nervous today.
Mention has been made of apathy, but in our part of the world there is no apathy. A survey conducted by the local Press showed that 86 per cent. of the respondents were in favour of the Plymouth proposals. They have been revised three times, and my right hon. Friend has kindly given me an interview, so I will not go into any detail now. Plympton and Plymstock also had a survey, and 63 per cent. of the people there were pleased to be in with Plymouth.
We have had previous difficulty with the county, and I should like to quote from the evidence given by the Devon County Council to the Royal Commission; they stated in paragraph 9:
The principal difficulties which affect the administration of the area are threefold: the problem of distances and communications, the lack of community of interest between the seaside resorts and the agricultural hinterland, and the lack of adequate financial resources.
There is no community of interest between the Devon county and the city of Plymouth. The county would not give a contribution towards the Tamar Bridge, and we have had difficulty over Swancombe reservoir, and there is a difference of opinion about the educational plans. Devon county is comprehensive. Plymouth rebuilt after the war on the lines of the Butler 1944 Act and also wants to preserve its excellent grammar schools.
A distance of 43 miles from the centre of operations is too great, particularly in summer. On a recent Saturday morning it took me an hour to travel 8 miles, so congested is the traffic in the summer. It will be almost impossible for young councillors to travel such a distance; those in business will not be allowed time off by their firms, and those who have their own firms will not be able to spare the time.

We may also have difficulty with those who work in the dockyard. Will they be able to remain as councillors in future? If not, we shall be left with the elderly and the retired.
We shall also need adequate local functions in order to keep enough interest going to get and keep the interest of councillors. Both the Hunt Report and the Tress Report stated that Plymouth should be a growth centre. In fact, we have worked hard on these lines and have sent officials to America, and indeed for a short time we had an office there to attract industry to Plymouth, and these efforts were successful. We have also had discussions with the Greater London Council about overspill. The population of Plymouth is one fifth of the total of the population of the two counties of Devon and Cornwall.
The proposed Tamar county would not be out of line with the proposals concerning Bristol, where Bath plus other parts of Somerset and Gloucester are to be combined. In fact, the White Paper contains 21 examples of existing counties being breached or altered. The hon. Member for Sutton has quoted from Lady Sharp and I hope that my right hon. Friend will take note of what she said because she is an expert in these matters.
It is not asking too much to suggest that parts of Cornwall might be joined to Plymouth. Parts of Cornwall, including the Rame peninsula, were within the county of Devon in the early part of the 19th Century. Even today, at Cawsand in Cornwall, there is an old boundary stone showing Devon county on one side and Cornwall county on the other, and we have now, of course, the Tamar bridge providing easy communications.
The city of Plymouth was the first city to be given a Charter by Parliament, in 1439. It has many historical records and it has always been anti-Establishment. There was a seige in 1642–46 in which Plymouthians held out against the King. In 1941 Plymouth suffered the most extensive war damage of any provincial city, and in 1943 the Plymouth plan was published. The people of Plymouth have shown great faith in their city, and I hope that it will not be the Department of the Environment which will knock down the city again.

7.23 p.m.

Mr. George Wallace: I, too, will be brief. In view of what was said by the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers), I would point out that Norwich received its first charter in 1158.

Dame Joan Vickers: Yes, from the King. Plymouth's was granted by Parliament.

Mr. Wallace: I have come armed with a mass of material since the City Council yesterday came to a decision on this matter. However, the council will be contacting the Secretary of State so I will not go into detail now since many other hon. Members are waiting to take part in this debate.
Good local administration is based on close contact between council and citizens. Remote control fosters apathy and destroys local interest. I have served on a fairly large urban district council and on a large county council, the Kent County Council. I have experienced the extreme remoteness of the large local authority. When I used to enter the county hall at Maidstone, I used to imagine engraved above the great gateway the words "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." That was the sort of feeling one had with a large local authority. Conversely, in a more intimate local authority, there is a sense of everybody working for the benefit of the community and not being divided by parochial differences.
I am proud to say that I represent the city and county borough of Norwich. The county borough is known throughout the local government world as one of the most progressive and excellent authorities on the matter of administration. It is an administration which has been built up over the centuries by the endeavour of the citizens. It is sheer folly to take away our major powers and to merge us into a remote authority, as is proposed, with a population of 715,000 stretching 75 miles from one extreme to another. This proposal will mean a blight on local interest and citizenship.
Norwich itself has always been the traditional leader of the East Anglian area. There will be no feeling of community interest throughout the new county area and it will lack a common sense of purpose. Norwich, like many

other areas, is very concerned about its excellent library, part of which is endowed by the United States Air Force, and has a magnificent museum and art gallery in the city castle and many other museums around the city. The art gallery and the new civic theatre are prized possessions which have been fought for over the years and which are visited by school children from London and elsewhere as part of their educational programme. All these good achievements will be lost if we become a large remote local authority.
I appeal to the Minister to consider giving Norwich more power than is envisaged at present. My main argument on the White Paper relates to the transfer of powers which is at present envisaged. These well-established local areas and county boroughs should not be deprived of a great deal of their powers or be merged into a remote area. This is what will happen to Norwich, and we shall lose something valuable in the process. It would be far better to amalgamate some of the smaller authorities, since I accept that local government reform is needed.
I register an objection on behalf of my City Council and the citizens of Norwich, irrespective of their political party; and I register my own objection at these proposals as one who has always been opposed to remote control and to the extension of bureaucracy. On no account will I vote in favour of any legislation that is proposed on the lines of the White Paper since it practically wipes out the good, compact, all-purpose authority.
Some amendment of the proposed transfer of power is needed and the Government should give way on this matter. Much in the White Paper is acceptable and praiseworthy, but I appeal to the Secretary of State to bring about a change in the proposals for a transfer of powers. If he is able to agree to do so, I assure him that I shall be more amenable on this matter, but at the moment I cannot support any proposed legislation.

7.28 p.m.

Mr. John M. Temple: Once again it has fallen to a Conservative Government to propose a major reorganisation of local government. I well remember the 1963 legislation which


re-organised local government in London. At that time all kinds of criticism was levelled against that legislation from all sides. But what happened to local government re-organisation in London? In fact, it worked out extremely well and is working for the benefit of everybody in the metropolitan area. I believe that the same thing will happen with these proposals. I give unqualified congratulations to my right hon. Friend in getting on with the job. Although during the Labour Administration many inquiries were set in hand, no action resulted.
I regard the White Paper as a landmark since it is based on the concept of increasing the efficiency of local government. It seeks to bring local government into a computer age, and therefore I see every justification for the allocation of functions which my right hon. Friend is proposing.
I wish to concentrate on two aspects of the White Paper. One of them has already attracted a special degree of interest, and it concerns the allocation of functions. The other factor on which I shall touch is the major question of finance, to which my right hon. Friend referred.
Dealing first with functions, as a frequent spokesman for the County Councils Association and a Vice-President of the Rural District Councils Association, I can say that both are happy with the proposals. As a Vice-President of the Association of Municipal Corporations and the representative of a county borough, I can say that the allocation of functions proposed is causing considerable concern. However, I believe that there is a wide misconception about what the new activities will be. Urban dwellers are thinking of the new councils as bodies comprised of councillors with the tweedy farmery image. In fact, the new county councils will be different. If I were a member of an existing county council, I should be exercised about the possibility of an urban takeover by urbane executives who were coming from the urban areas. The new county councils will be very different from the existing ones. I hope that I can get that message across and thereby give more confidence to all those worthy councillors from county boroughs who will serve on the new county councils and who I know will be as dedi-

cated in their new work as they have been in the past.
Coming from the county of Cheshire, I must say how relieved we were at the result of the General Election. If it had not been for that result, the whole county would have been dismembered. As it is, my right hon. Friend has saved the county of Cheshire. I congratulate him, and I can assure him on behalf of the county that it proposes to be extremely generous to the district councils who will come along with it—not under it—and that it hopes that a modus vivendi will be worked out whereby the county will be a viable unit of local government, as it has been in the past.
I must not miss this opportunity of putting in one plea. I have been asked to say that we are losing about a third of our population, and we are asking for very modest extensions of the proposed county boundaries in the east and the west.
When this House considered the local government legislation of 1958, I spoke for Ellesmere Port, and I reiterate the plea that I made then, based on all kinds of splendid criteria, that the borough of Ellesmere Port and the urban district of Neston be included in the county of Cheshire. In the east of the county, there are three modest districts which want to be with the county and would be very welcome. I think that these are modest demands upon my right hon. Friend.
The county borough of Chester has been a unit of county government on its own for some 500 years. It has a good record of administration. I make one further plea to reinforce those which have been made by a number of my hon. Friends about county borough functions. As Chester has been designated as one of four historic cities in the country from the planning and environmental point of view, it should be autonomous in its planning functions.
It was significant that my right hon. Friend had something to say about finance. He said that the district councils would be the rating authorities. I do not think that that is a very much loved function of district councils. I regard it as a professional function. I was alarmed by this proposal, because it is one of the functions which can be computerised and which in my view


ought to be one of the county's. On grounds of efficiency, the rating function would be better administered at county level, with all the computerisation available. On grounds of efficiency also, the number of experts on local government finance who can talk to the Government and stand a chance with the officials at the Ministry is limited. Therefore, it would be as well to have fewer rating authorities, and that those authorities should be the counties.
My right hon. Friend said something else about the financial function. He said that a sales tax or possibly a local vehicle tax was under consideration. A sales tax is the front runner in this field of alternative sources of locally raised revenue. If a sales tax ever eventuates, it must be a function of the counties and not of the district councils. If we are to follow through logically my right hon. Friend's proposals, rates will be raised by the district councils, with the county precepting on them, and a sales tax would be a function of at least county government.
There is a case for bringing the two functions of raising finance under one hat, and that should be the county hat. More than that, if the elected representatives in local government at county level are to be spending the millions of pounds and those at district level are to be spending the millions of pence, the councillors responsible for spending the money should be responsible for levying the rate.
I leave my points there, in deference to Mr. Speaker's strictures. Once again, I reiterate my congratulations to my right hon. Friend and say with confidence that, when his proposals are understood fully throughout the country, they will command wide acceptance.

7.37 p.m.

Mr. Dan Jones: It is my intention also to be brief, but it is not my intention to pursue any of the points raised by the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Temple). I do not understand his observation that it has fallen to a Conservative Government to bring about local government reform. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has heard about Maud and the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for

Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) in relation to Maud. However, I will not pursue the point, because it is not very relevant.
I want to consider the way in which the proposals in the White Paper affect county boroughs in Central Lancashire. Clearly, the county boroughs of Burnley, Blackpool, Preston and Blackburn recognise the need for change. There is no doubt about that. But, realising that the change could last for upwards, I suppose, of 100 years, they believe that the amount of consideration which has been given to it by the Government is insufficient.
I have referred generally to the work of the county boroughs. I can speak with more authority about my own constituency. Here, let the Minister note, I am in the unique position of speaking for all three political parties, for the Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber of Trade. All are united in their opposition to the Government's proposals.
A tremendous amount of industrial development has been undertaken in Burnley as a result of local initiative. The people of Burnley were badly hit by the recessions in cotton and coal, and they have revealed a local dynamism without which I am afraid that the county borough of Burnley and many other county boroughs in Central Lancashire would have been in a parlous state. These areas will be rendered a disabling blow if we take that away from them.
Education, housing and the development of the central areas reveal a remarkable pattern of local government control over the years consistent at all times with the people.
The White Paper, in paragraph 8, states:
A vigorous local democracy means that authorities must be given real functions—with powers of decision and the ability to take action without being subjected to excessive regulation by central government through financial or other controls. Local authority areas should be related to areas within which people have a common interest—through living in a recognisable community, through the links of employment, shopping or social activities or through history and tradition.
The professed aims of the Minister and the proposals in the White Paper in no way match.
I promised to be brief, and I shall keep that promise. Before resuming my seat I make a special and earnest appeal


to the Secretary of State. I know his dynamic character. One can say that, but whether one agrees with his conclusions is another matter. The Minister is young and ambitious and, I believe, prepared to take adventurous steps. I appeal to him not to take those steps until he has consulted people who have experience. The right hon. Gentleman is not present, but I have no doubt that his political ego will ensure that he reads my remarks. I know that I would do so if I were in his position. I therefore appeal to him, before finally making up his mind on this very important issue, to see these county boroughs and to examine the plans which they intend putting before him to give them a form of metropolitan area status. If he did that, I am sure that these areas which include members of his own party would be eternally grateful.

7.43 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: If I say nothing in praise of the proposals in the White Paper it is solely in the interests of brevity. Time compells me to concentrate upon one point of criticism affecting my constituency.
It is proposed that the southern part of Buckinghamshire, the Eton rural district, the Eton urban district and the borough of Slough, should be put into Berkshire. The White Paper states that the intention is to form local authority areas which have a community of purpose and a contemporary sense of affinity. This proposal will certainly run totally counter to all that is so expressed in the White Paper. For example, in paragraph 6, it states:
The areas of many existing authorities are out dated and no longer reflect the pattern of life and work in modern society.
The existing boundaries of Buckinghamshire certainly reflect the pattern of life and work.
In South Buckinghamshire there is the strongest possible boundary of all—the River Thames. The proposal that Berkshire should come across the River Thames, which has not many bridges at that point, to take in the southern part of Buckinghamshire lies in the face of geography, of what the people of the area want, and of any administrative logic. There seems no other possible explanation than that someone must have

represented to my right hon. Friend that that would accord with the wishes and the natural desires of the people in the area. I assure him that that is not so.
I am not entitled to speak for the people of the borough of Slough or the Eton urban district, but the noble Lord Brockway, who represented that constituency in this House for many years, made it clear in another place in a recent debate that he had no hesitation in saying that the population of that area desired to remain in Buckinghamshire and not be transferred to Berkshire. The noble Lord said that Slough and the Eton urban district were absolutely united in opposing transfer.
I can speak for the people in the Eton rural district. I have represented them for over twenty-one years, I live in the constituency, and therefore I feel that I know what they want. They are overwhelmingly opposed to this change. I know that my right hon. Friend will have been deluged with complaints and objections from public and private bodies, individuals and societies. Everybody has been horrified by this suggestion. I ask him to believe that any idea that the people of the southern part of South Buckinghamshire think in terms of Reading and Berkshire is absurd.
The eastern boundary of this area is about 15 miles from Charing Cross. If one had to put a label upon the Eton rural district it would be that it was a commuter district. The people living there tend to work in London. They never think in terms of Reading or Berkshire; they think of themselves, the villages in the area, and then of London where many of them work and to and from which they travel with regularity.
I turn now to the viability of the area. If this extraordinary change is not made the counties of Buckinghamshire and Berkshire will be of similar size—roughly half a million. If the change is made Buckinghamshire will become the fifth smallest county and Berkshire will become one of the biggest counties. Both counties have populations of about half a million—far above the minimum level that my right hon. Friend has proposed. Therefore, from considerations of population or revenue no possible argument can be derived in favour of the change. On the contrary, arguments can be


derived against it. The affinities of the people, their pattern of life, work, shopping and travel, all militate against the change. They are unanimous against it. The River Thames is the most obvious and natural boundary that anyone could imagine.
These areas have been in Buckinghamshire for nearly 1,100 years—from the time that Buckinghamshire came into existence as part of the Kingdom of Mercia. When hon. Members get tired of waiting to be called in this place, they apply for the Chiltern Hundreds. I have them in the sense that I represent two of them. It is proposed to wrench away the southern part of two of the Chiltern Hundreds—the House has often heard the phrase: "Her Majesty's Chiltern Hundreds in the County of Buckinghamshire"—which have been in Buckinghamshire for over 1,000 years, and to put them in Berkshire where they do not want to go. Why? I am utterly at a loss to know.
The hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Simon Mahon) said one thing about consultation which I think strikes a chord in many of us. He felt that the consultation was sometimes a little elevated, abstract and remote. I wonder from whom my right hon. Friend got this advice. If I had been asked, which I was not, I could have told him exactly what the reaction of my constituents would be. I could have told him that they worked in and travelled to London. I could have told him that Reading and Berkshire were nothing in their lives and that to replace the Thames by the A40, the road to Oxford, which cuts through the communities of the area, so that we lose the wonderful boundary of the biggest river in England and get instead a road which threads its sinuous way along and across streets was high summer madness. But nobody asked me.
I ask my right hon. Friend now to accept that advice from everybody in my constituency, from the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, from Earl Howe, from my colleagues in this House who surround the area or who live in it. Everybody holds that view and I ask my right hon. Friend to accept this volume of representation and to reverse what must surely have been a mere inadvertence.

7.52 p.m.

Mr. Albert Roberts: One of my hon. Friends said that if it is bigger, it is not bound to be better. That is important, because, although we are discussing the Redcliffe-Maud Report, I remember Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve's report, and I remember, too, the development of the green belt in the late 'thirties. In those days we talked about putting nets around large county boroughs to prevent county borough and borough sprawl.
I was disgusted—and I say this respectfully—when my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) allowed Sheffield to overspill into Derbyshire. Some of the aldermen say, "This must be all right, because we are going to be bigger". Only a few weeks ago one alderman of Barnsley said:
We are now a population of 80,000, but in a short time there will be a population of 200,000 in the area.
That is how people look at the situation.
We are dealing with local government, and local means local. I was a member of a local government in the late' thirties. In the Urban District Council of Rothwell we had a wonderful M. and C.W. service. Legislation took it away from us, and today the service is not as good as it was then. We carried out our own immunisation service. We run our own library service. Refuse is collected every week, and now, in the three urban districts that I represent, our services are comparable to, if not better than, those in any other part of the country.
The Secretary of State says that this is new and exciting. It is not new, and I wonder whether it is going to be exciting. I come back to the words of my hon. Friend, "if it is bigger, is it better?" I believe that, in the words of the Trustram Eve Report, it is better to bring together two maximum populations of 50,000 or 60,000. It would be better to bring together Stanley, Normanton and Roth-well and to give the area additional powers. If that were done, it would do a better job than it will if it is flung into this metropolitan area that is being put before us.
Only two years ago the town planning authority in the West Riding talked about the five towns of Castleford, Pontefract,


Nottingley, Normanton and Featherstone. They have their trading area, and they are part of an intermediate area. They are disappointed now that they are to be put into the Wakefield district. Can anyone say that they will be more efficient and provide a better service?
The Secretary of State referred to education. I guarantee that he could not stand up before any teacher and say that education will be better dealt with by the district than by the metropolitan. Only recently I received a letter saying:
We have in Rothwell and Stanley what seems an efficient educational system working in the framework created by the West Riding Education Department. Teachers, whether in primary, secondary schools, grammar or modern, co-operate together and create a happy and effective integrated system. All this will be destroyed when the schools in the Stanley area go into the Wakefield district and those in Rothwell go into Leeds.
Stanley and Rothwell have one education executive. We have one grammar school. What does it mean? Education in the West Riding is at the top in Wakefield, while Leeds is well below, and we shall be divided.
I suggest to the Secretary of State that he should look at this whole question, because Sir Alec Clegg has denounced his proposals. The criticism was published in the Yorkshire Post some time ago, and I hope that cognisance will be taken of what was said, because this is an extremely serious matter, and local authorities in my constituency are concerned about these proposals.
There is no comparison between the metropolitan area suggested for West Yorkshire and that for South-East Lancashire and the Midlands. Physically and economically we are far more loosely knit. We have our wide open spaces, and our green belts, and to talk about making us a metropolitan area is far from the mark. I am sure that this proposal needs to be re-examined by the Secretary of State.
Not long ago I travelled over the Pennines to Manchester. Heaven forbid that Yorkshire ever becomes like South-East Lancashire, because from the Pennines to Manchester I could not tell which was Oldham and which was Failsworth. In fact, I did not know when I arrived in Manchester. There is nothing like that in Yorkshire, and it is unfair to compare us with the West

Midlands, Merseyside, or South-East Lancashire.
I should have thought that would be far better to adopt the proposal in the Trustram Eve Report and integrate into districts units of up to 50,000 or 60,000. I believe that sufficient consideration has not been given to some of the reports made prior to the Redcliffe-Maud Report, and I wanted to take part in today's debate because I think that they are important to West Yorkshire.
Reference has been made to Harrogate being joined to Leeds. It will be far better if Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford and Hull remain as they are. We could bring some unification into the smaller units and, if they were given the right kind of powers, we could keep things local. We could engender more local interest and maintain quality service. I think that if that were done we should bring about as great an improvement as we shall have if these proposals are carried out. I hope that the classification of a metropolitan area is a non-runner in West Yorkshire. I hope that education, as it is at present, particularly in the West Riding, will be maintained, because we are proud of it. If these things are taken into consideration, it will satisfy the people whom I represent.

8.0 p.m.

Sir Stephen McAdden: The right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) said that the county borough of Southend had achieved some notoriety in recent months. Although I am sorely tempted to deal with some of the more hysterical pronouncements from that area, it would be unfair to waste the time of the House. Being a kindly soul, I prefer to ignore them and to concentrate on this White Paper.
On the general position, I am amazed that some people professing to be expert students of politics and local government should appear to be surprised that the Government have come forward with a White Paper on local government reform. If they did not expect proposals for local government reform, they must have peen fast asleep for the last ten years. Nothing else has been talked about in local government circles, both among the Labour Party and ourselves, for the last ten years—

Mr. Ron Lewis: More like 20 years.

Sir S. McAdden: I agree with the hon. Gentleman.
I am making no reference to the Liberal Party. That would be unkind, because not one member of that party has attended the debate since it started. Let us confine our remarks to those who are interested in the subject and have been for the last 20 years. Those who say that it has come like a bolt from the blue have not been interested either in politics or in local government.
Some others say, "We expected some reform of local government, but we did not expect this proposal of a two-tier system from the Conservative Party." They obviously did not read the Conservative election manifesto, where it was clearly set out. It is a little late for people who are now protesting that they are the grass roots of the Conservative Party, responsible for the election of hon. Members, to pretend that they did not know that the Tory Party was committed to a two-tier system. Perhaps they are not so up-to-date on political affairs as they should be.
The natural irritation which one feels about some of the silly comments should not lead my right hon. Friend to be unduly prejudiced against real and substantial points. Even the stupidest people can sometimes put forward sensible arguments. Some sensible arguments can be made against the White Paper.
I represent half the county borough of Southend-on-Sea. People who say that there should be a policy for county boroughs as a whole are talking nonsense, because these boroughs vary so much; their populations range from 30,000 to 250,000 and more. There cannot be a general policy for them all. I can understand that my right hon. Friend's argument presumably would be that one cannot pick and choose, but one can and should. Local authorities over a particular size and operating in exceptional circumstances should not be lumped together with all local authorities.
An example is the seaside resorts. They must provide services not only for their resident populations but, in my own county borough, for example, for millions of other people during the summer months, who expect to be provided with

some of the services which it is the duty of the borough to provide. There is a case for looking into this situation.
In spite of some of the more excitable things which were said in the early stages of the discussion of the White Paper, at last some sensible proposals have come forward. With all modesty, I would point out that they are proposals which I suggested. I am glad that the hon. Member for Thurrock (Mr. Delargy) is here, because I want to join him in commending to my right hon. Friends the proposals submitted by Thurrock and Basildon and which have the blessing, if it is needed, of Southend-on-Sea as well—

Mr. Delargy: We appreciate it.

Sir S. McAdden: This is an excellent proposal. It has been set out in writing to my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Thurrock has dealt with it already, so I will not go over it again. I hope that it will receive serious consideration. If my right hon. Friend decides not to go forward with it, I hope that he will consider the general functions and powers of county boroughs. He must appreciate that it comes as a nasty shock to an authority which for years has been an all-purpose authority suddenly to find itself divested of some of its powers.
This has been exaggerated, and it has even been said that all their powers will be taken away. They will not, but some very important ones will be. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Development will spell out some of the important powers which will remain with the district councils, some of the functions which they will still have to perform, and that his right hon. Friend will give serious consideration to extending those powers, to those former all-purpose authorities from which it is proposed to take them away. After all, if a local authority has over the years succeeded in providing excellent services, it seems a pity to take them away and give them to some other authority.
This difficulty has been exaggerated. It has been suggested that, suddenly, because a new county council is elected to whom power has been delegated, all that facilities in the old county borough areas will suddenly disappear overnight. Of course they will not. The new county council, finding within its area a former


county borough with an excellent system of services, will not suddenly throw them out of the window. It will build upon them and try to improve them. But there is considerable apprehension about the result—an apprehension which it is the job of my right hon. Friend to try to remove, so far as he can.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will not be deterred by some of the rude things which have been said. here is common sense behind them. I can take it. I do not mind what rude things they say to me, about what will happen at the next election and how the Government will be brought down. I hope that my right hon. Friend will apply his mind to the serious questions and give the county boroughs some more consideration than seems to have been evidenced in the proposals in the White Paper.

8.9 p.m.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: I shall not quarrel in this debate, with the boundaries proposed in the White Paper. My criticism is diretced to the lack of democracy in these new proposals. I would refer the House to paragraph 8 of the White Paper, already referred to by the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Simon Mahon). It states:
…a genuine local democracy implies that decisions should be taken—and should be seen to be taken—as locally as possible.
Paragraph 13 states:
…judgment will be given in favour of responsibility being exercised at the more local level.
Paragraph 22 regarding district councils states:
The Government intend these councils to be genuine authorities, existing in their own right, and with responsibilities and powers sufficient to make service with them a reality for both members and officers. It would be a disservice to local government to establish authorities with functions inadequate to arouse public respect or interest.
The proposed allocation of functions given in the appendix to the White Paper seems to be entirely contrary to those statements of intent. Only a limited range of functions is proposed to be given to district councils.
On reading the White Paper one would imagine that the first few pages to part

of which I have referred were written by one man and then he died and the rest was written by somebody else with completely different views. We will not get people of the right calibre to serve on what is virtually a rural district council or get the right calibre of officers.
Let me consider one or two services and the proposed allocation of functions. First, highways, traffic and transportation. Everything goes to the county council, including lighting, maintenance, repairs of all minor streets in the area, traffic regulation, parking restriction, pedestrian crossings and even private street works. The county will obviously have to establish depots in all the local authority areas, and this will mean an increase in the rates.
Furthermore, anybody wishing to make a complaint will have to go to the county council. The borough council of Watford has 44 members, but Watford has only seven out of the 88 members of the county council. How are other members of the county council, for example, a man in Royston, in North Herts, to know the traffic problems of some of the streets in Watford?
This plan is bound to lead to redundancies. The borough engineer's department will have no work, will obviously be phased out and about 80 people will have to go. It will be reduced to achitects and quantity surveyors to deal with housing, with a small section for collecting refuse.
May I remind the House that Watford is the pioneer of the service precinct and pedestrian precinct. It would have been impossible for Watford to have pioneered these developments if it had not had traffic management powers and powers to deal with the improvement of roads.
There are three multi-storey car parks in Watford. Indeed, Watford is streets ahead of other boroughs. Why, therefore, emasculate it? I urge the Minister—who is not in his place but who is, no doubt, with us in spirit—seriously to reconsider the whole question of highways, traffic and transportation.
Next, town planning. I do not grumble with the distribution of development control in connection with this; what is bad is that the staff dealing with the function of advising the district council should


be no longer under that council's control, but in future will be county officers. This is dealt with in paragraph 21 of the White Paper, which I will not read because time is short and many other hon. Members wish to speak. This system of advisory staff being county council officers existed 15 or 20 years ago and was found not to work. I urge the Minister not to go back to the previous system. Insuperable problems of dual allegiance are also bound to be created.
Next—libraries. Watford library is superior to any county service. Why not leave it as it is? I remind the House that the total cost per 1,000 inhabitants in Watford is less than any county library service.
Another sphere in which it is proposed to remove democratic local participation is education. The divisional executive will disappear. At present there is a local officer and a local councillor dealing with this issue and anybody in difficulty need not go to the county council. These local men—officers and councillors—know the scene and local problems far better than the county council, which does not have the understanding of local needs. Again I cite the example of Royston in North Hertfordshire and Watford in South-West Hertfordshire. The problems in each are different. I urge the Minister to retain the present divisional executive system.
At present the borough council is responsible for administering building regulations and for giving approval to building plans. The White Paper gives this responsibility to the county council, while the district council remains responsible for granting planning permission. This is completely upside down and incredible. Building regulations are now generally uniform throughout the country. Is there any reason why they should not be administered locally by the same authority as administers development control, so affording an applicant the opportunity of on-the-spot consultation at the local council offices?
May I remind the Minister that it is intended to give district councils in Wales administration of the building regulations. Why not do the same in England? This leads me to ask why all the proposals for the allocation of functions as between county councils and district councils in Wales are much more favourable to dis-

trict councils in Wales than they are to their counterparts in England. Are the English district councils deemed to be so undesirable or inefficient?
Every type of authority in the county of Hertford—boroughs, urban district councils and rural district councils—support the views that I have outlined. I therefore ask the Minister to give serious attention to these views before taking further decisions.
The opinion which I now give about the aldermanic system is my own and has nothing to do with my constituency or the county of Hertford. I believe that the aldermanic system is anomalous, anachronistic and anti-democratic. I have a suggestion, however, which I commend to the Minister—that when councillors have given long service to a local authority and have thereby gained valuable experience, if they do not want to go in for the rough and tumble of elections or the exertion of being county councillors any longer they should be able to be aldermen with power to attend and speak at council meetings but not to vote.
In this way they would be contributing their valuable experience to the council, but the democratic principle would not be vitiated because they would not be able to vote. I ask the Minister to examine this suggestion which, as I say, is a personal one.

8.17 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Jones (Northants, South): It is inevitable that, in discussing these important proposals for local government reform, hon. Members will reflect local circumstances. I shall do the same because of the deep concern in two areas of my constituency in Northamptonshire which it is proposed should be transferred to adjoining counties.
I wish, first, to refer to the villages of Crick, Barby, Kilsby, Lilbourne and Yelvertoft in the northern part of Northamptonshire, and which it is proposed should form part of the new area of Warwick.
The depth of feeling on the part of the residents of this area is considerable. A petition was sent to the Secretary of State in 1970 bearing well over 2,000 signatures against this transfer, and that represented the view of 85 per cent. of the total electorate.
All five parish councils, with the exception of Barby, have passed resolutions against the Government's proposals. At a public meeting held in April, called by the county council, of those present two voted for the proposals and 175 against. The Royal Commission justified the transfer on the ground that
These parishes look to Rugby and to some extent also to Coventry for employment, shopping and entertainment".
This could be said of a variety of locations. It is very difficult to justify changing the ancient and historic boundaries on grounds such as these.
There is also a proposal to transfer to the new Oxford authority the Brackley borough council and 18 parishes in the rural district area of Brackley. Brackley is a small town surrounded by a very beautiful rural area which comprises the Western tip of the county, stretching from Upper Boddington south to Aynho, some 15 miles, and from Middleton Cheney west to Syresham, approximately 12 miles. Residents in this delightful countryside know, from the services they have enjoyed in Northamptonshire, that they have all along been highly favoured by the county council which, as a whole, has directed so much of its efforts to the preservation of these outstanding parts of rural England.
The Royal Commission Report justified moving this area out of Northamptonshire into the new area of Oxfordshire on the ground that the Brackley borough and rural district had particular links with Banbury. But this is certainly not the case. The whole area is an entity in itself and has no close loyalties elsewhere. It is a distinct area with an individual character. It may be accused of introspection, but there can be no criteria which justify its removal from the present county boundaries, to which it has so many loyalties.
At a public meeting in Brackley a short while ago, out of 200 people present, only five voted in favour of the Government's proposals. Sir Spencer Summers, whom many of us remember as the representative of the Aylesbury constituency in this House for many years, coined a delightful description of the area. He termed it a countryside "in isolation". Certainly it is that. It is a very beautiful and delightful part of

Northamptonshire and I hope that it will remain a part.
On the general point about staffs in local government, the staff issue is not receiving the careful attention which it should. There is understandable anxiety among the staffs of local authorities throughout England and Wales at all levels. We can understand this when we realise that some 1,400 authorities are to be reduced in number to between 400 and 500. Therefore, this will mean a reduction in senior posts, in professional terms and in employment terms.
I was surprised to learn from the Secretary of State, when he answered a Question on 23rd March, that the appointment of a staff commission must await legislation before it can be established formally. We have had experience under the Local Government Act, and I am concerned that we can do nothing in positive terms about staffs in local government until we have legislation.
There is understandable difficulty in maintaining existing staffs and in the appointment of men of first-class calibre to fill vacancies arising between now and 1974, to which must be added the poor prospects, or the much less favourable prospects, for officers in the proposed district authorities.
The biggest ever managerial task lies before members and officers of local authorities between now and April, 1974. In terms of appointments throughout the new authorities of all sorts, I hope that we shall not find that heirs apparent are appointed to these various senior posts. It would be a very bad state of affairs if a clerk of a county council, for example, were looked upon now as the heir apparent for the revised county council, or if a principal officer in one of the county boroughs which was being taken into a new county considered himself, or was considered by council members, as the natural successor to that senior post when appointments are made.
It is difficult to see how one can avoid the natural parochialism that there is bound to be in this respect. My suggestion, which I understand would not be very acceptable to local government as a whole, is that we should consider making the first appointments of a senior nature by the staff commission itself rather, perhaps, than by leaving it to


members of local authorities, who may be trying to put their favoured sons into these senior positions.

The Minister for Local Government and Development (Mr. Graham Page): I am sure that my hon. Friend is right to call attention to this matter at this stage. I should have thought it most unfortunate if there is a sort of pre-emption on staff appointments at this stage. We shall try to appoint the staff commission, for convention, perhaps, even before it has its legal function, after the Second Reading of the Bill. I hope that there will then be an opportunity of getting down at once to the appointment of the staff, without necessarily pre-empting on that beforehand.

Mr. Jones: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those useful comments.
I am concerned about the proposal in paragraph 21 of the White Paper for
…a unified staff structure, serving both counties and districts…
This relates to planning, where we should have joint staffs. I notice that when the Secretary of State referred to this he mentioned the co-ordination of staffs and not "a unified staff structure". There are clearly difficulties here. The present proposals are contrary to accepted practice, and I cannot see how they will work out satisfactorily in administrative terms. There are bound to be divergencies of view between county authorities and district councils. The latter clearly need officers directly responsible to them, who can give independent advice and take a full and uninhibited part in any discussion with county officials in presenting the district council's case.
There is an important question of loyalty of staffs. A nightmare situation could develop in which loyalties must inevitably be involved if the proposals are implemented. I hope that it will be possible to consider this aspect of the recommendations again.
I congratulate the Secretary of State on the degree and extent of the consultation in which he has engaged on this subject. I know that it has been widely applauded and recognised. I think that this has become known throughout the country as the "Peter Walker exercise". It has been extremely useful for all those

wishing to play a part in forming policy, and I am convinced that the Secretary of State recognises the value of it. In persuading his Cabinet colleagues to place a Bill in the legislative programme he has recognised the feeling throughout local government and the country on the issue of reform which has been with us for so long. "Let us get on with it", is the general feeling. Clearly this is just what the Government intend to do.

8.28 p.m.

Mr. Dick Leonard: Unlike the hon. Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) and the majority of other hon. Members who have spoken, I have no special plea to make for the county, the borough or the parish in which I live. Indeed, as a London Member I can claim relative disinterest, if not complete impartiality, in my approach to the question where exactly the boundaries of individual authorities are to be drawn.
What I am concerned about is the method by which these boundaries are to be delineated. This is the single point to which I shall address myself—the powers, duties and membership of the Local Government Boundary Commission proposed in paragraphs 56 and 57 of the White Paper. My right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) has already put a number of pertinent questions concerning the Commission, and I look forward with interest to the answers which the Under-Secretary will give later.
It is extraordinary that there is so little detail about the Commission in the White Paper, nothing about its membership and virtually nothing about its terms of reference. One of the more disturbing omissions is that no guidance is given concerning the apportionment of electoral divisions within the new local authority areas, a matter on which experience suggests that the clearest possible guidelines should be given.
The existing provisions for revising local government electoral areas are irregular, inefficient and opaque, and they lead almost invariably to confusion, frustration and accusations of bad faith. It is vital that the opportunity should now be seized of making a fresh start and putting the machinery permanently on a more rational, clearer and equitable basis.
The White Paper suggests in paragraph 57 that the Government have in mind that the Boundary Commission
should form part of the permanent machinery for keeping local government areas and electoral divisions up-to-date.
I am delighted to hear this, but in so far as a permanent machinery exists already, its object appears to be to keep electoral divisions out of date. The most grotesque anomalies have arisen and have been allowed to continue year after year with no attempt made to put them right. For example, it was pointed out in 1964 by a writer in the Local Government Chronicle that the boroughs of Poole and Weymouth, which together had some 93,000 electors, returned only 22 members to the Dorset County Council, while the remainder of the county, with a population of 121,000, returned no fewer than 48 members. Since then there have been some minor adjustments, but the basic anomaly remains and there has been no major re-warding in the county of Dorset since 1933.
On the Cumberland County Council it takes 7,714 votes to return a member from the Workington South division but only 1,381 to elect a councillor from Lamplugh. Cumberland is one of a number of counties—I could give other examples such as Oxfordshire, Dorset and Shropshire—where the urban areas are grossly under-represented in relation to the more rural parts.
The Cumberland County Council has been in no hurry to correct this anomaly. Its last proposal for reapportionment was in 1937. Perhaps this is the reason why the Labour Party has never controlled the Cumberland County Council, though at every post-war parliamentary election it has polled more votes in Cumberland than the Conservatives.

Mr. Ron Lewis: I assure my hon. Friend that after last Thursday the ball has certainly started to roll in Cumberland towards the Labour Party.

Mr. Leonard: I am delighted to hear that. If hon. Members opposite feel rather complacent about this example, I can offer them plenty of others where it is the Tories who have suffered from the lack of effective machinery for regular revisions of electoral boundaries. In Manchester, for example, where a rewarding has just taken place, the Con-

servatives were for many years underrepresented on the City Council. It was only when they rather fortuitously won control in 1967 that they were able to set the machinery going which resulted in the new boundaries under which last week's election took place. The previous re-warding in Manchester had been as recent as 1953, but by last year the Woodhouse Park ward with 18,241 electors was already more than seven times as large as St. Peter's ward which had 2,494 voters.
I think that I have given sufficient examples to show the extremely unsatisfactory nature of the present position.

Mr. Graham Page: Then no doubt the hon. Gentleman will welcome the suggestion in paragraph 57, to which he has referred, of the Boundary Commission which might in future be able to take the initiative in the revision of boundaries, whereas it has come only from local authorities in the past.

Mr. Leonard: Yes, but if the new proposals are to command confidence, they must have built-in procedures for preventing such anomalies from arising and persisting. The White Paper tells us nothing about that, and the only evidence we have that the Government are cognisant of the problem comes from Press reports of the various confidential consultative papers to which the Secretary of State referred.
Three essential principles must be established from the outset. The first requirement is to give equality of numbers within electoral districts overriding priority in the criteria for drawing up electoral divisions. It has been reported that the Government favour adopting the provision in the London Government Act that the ratio of electors to councillors must be "as nearly as may be" the same in every ward. In my view, this is far too vague a formulation, and I hope that the Bill will contain a firm stipulation of the maximum permitted deviation from the average. This deviation should not be large—certainly no greater than, say, 25 per cent.—so that good effect can be given to the principle of "one man one vote" and to make it more difficult to draw up boundaries designed to give party advantage.
The second principle is that there should be a regular review of boundaries and that the initiative for change should


not be left to the local authority itself, as at present. I am glad that the Minister has indicated that this will be so. The Boundary Commission might be charged with making a regular review, say, every 10 years, with the power to make interim proposals in respect of individual authorities which are experiencing rapid population change.
The third and equally fundamental need is that the Boundary Commission should be properly equipped to function effectively. This means, first, that its membership must include people who do not only have a deep knowledge of the problems involved but have a dynamic approach and are willing to learn from the experiences of other democratic countries, which in this sphere are highly relevant. My right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby referred to the need for members with local government experience. I hope that at least one person with an academic background in this field will be included.
I come now to what I know will be regarded in the House as a controversial proposal but which I am convinced none the less is essential, namely, that the Boundary Commission shoud take account of the likely political consequences of its recommendations in terms of party balance and should strive to ensure, as far as practicable, that in any authority the party achieving the highest number of votes should also have the largest number of seats on the council. In the past, both local government and Parliamentary Commissions have not openly taken such factors into account, and the result has been that the political parties have been forced to cloak their perfectly legitimate partisan representations in a camouflage of spurious argument. The result has been not only that a number of highly peculiar recommendations have been adopted but that this allegedly nonpolitical process has by no means been immune from violent political controversy, as was instanced by the Northampton case in 1965.
I believe that it would lead to better decisions and, in the end, to fewer accusations of political jiggery-pokery if such political considerations were brought into the open. The pretence that Boundary Commissioners are not taking highly poli-

tical decisions, however impartial they may be, is a ludicrous fiction, and it is high time that it was given a decent burial.
To take specific account of political factors would, no doubt, add to the complexity of the Boundary Commissioners' work, and it is essential that they be given adequate means to carry out their task. This, surely, must include the use of computers to assist in the delineation of ward boundaries. When I spoke in the debate on Parliamentary redistribution last October and referred to the considerable research carried out in the United States into computer redistricting, the reaction of the Minister of State at the Home Office, who replied to the debate, was most disturbing. He was, frankly, incredulous, and it was the reverse of reassuring to learn that the Minister responsible for these matters had no idea of the work which was being carried on.
I sincerely hope that the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment is better informed, but, in case he has not heard about it, I refer him to the work which has been done in the Department of Economics at Bristol University on the determination of local government boundaries by computer. The method was applied to the ward boundaries of the County Borough of Bristol and produced a scheme whereby the maximum deviation of any ward from the average electorate was 11 per cent., and after a period of 11 years the deviation had increased only to 16 per cent. By contrast, the actual re-warding of Bristol prepared by a Boundary Commissioner in 1954 produced a maximum deviation of 20 per cent., which increased to 53 per cent. by 1965.
It is clear that, with the aid of computers, the Boundary Commissioners can produce more objective and precise recommendations, and I hope that the House will demand that the proposed Local Government Boundary Commission be equipped from the outset with the necessary technical and professional backing to take full advantage of the most modern methods available.
Provided the Government give satisfactory assurances about the Local Government Boundary Commission, we should be in a position to effect a permanent and long-overdue improvement in


the democratic machinery of local government. But it is proposed that the initial boundaries for the first elections to the new authorities should not be drawn up by the commission but should be concocted in great haste by town clerks throughout the country. That is, surely, a mistake. The first councils elected will set the tone for the new system, which is likely to endure for many years. It is more important that it should get off to a good start than that it should be launched in 1973 rather than in, say, 1974. The commission should be asked to delineate electoral boundaries before the first elections are held, even if that means some additional delay in establishing the new authorities.

8.41 p.m.

Mr. Fergus Montgomery: I do not intend to deal with all the statistics the hon. Member for Rom-ford (Mr. Leonard) used in presenting his case.
We are debating a difficult subject. We all accept the need for some local government reorganisation, but there is always disagreement on the proposals put forward. The area I represent was far from happy about the Redcliffe-Maud proposals. We think that the proposals before us are better, but we have certain reservations about them. The West Midlands had a major reorganisation in 1966, and many people feel strongly that our area could have been excluded this time. After all, London has also had a major reorganisation and was left out this time. Our area has not completely settled down since the 1966 reorganisation. The merging then of smaller authorities into a large county borough caused considerable headaches. Now to be faced with further disruption has caused great forebodings in the area.
Like certain other hon. Members who have spoken, I do not worship at the shrine of the belief that the larger the authority the more efficient it is. Many smaller local authorities do an excellent job. Because of their size they provide a very good service to the local people. They are more accessible and more in touch with the people. Residents find it much easier to talk to the officials and officers of the council concerned.
We have been asked to be brief, and therefore for the last few minutes of my speech I shall just underline certain of

the problems about which anxiety has been expressed in my constituency.
Under the White Paper proposals, Dudley county borough would become part of the West Midlands metropolitan area and lose many of its functions. Because of the request for short speeches, I shall mention only one of the problems about which it is concerned, the question of highways and traffic management, which has been mentioned by the hon. Member for Thturock (Mr. Delargy). The White Paper proposes handing over responsibility for these to the West Midlands metropolitan council. But many highway functions are very local and could be left with the district council, such as the construction and improvement of minor roads, together with maintenance work.
What particularly worries Dudley is the question of traffic management being the responsibility of the metropolitan council. This is of great concern to the Dudley council, because it has just built a new shopping precinct. Great thought was given to the provision of adequate free car-parking facilities in the area. Any future decision on on and off-street parking could be damaging to that shopping area. The fear in Dudley is that the new metropolitan council for the West Midlands may not see things in the same light as Dudley. There is anxiety that the foresight Dudley has shown on car parking, which has helped make it a first-class shopping area, could all be undone.
My main reason for speaking in the debate is the proposal in the White Paper to dismember the rural district of Seisdon, with a population of almost 40,000. I have had more letters of protest on this issue than on any other since I entered the House. I cannot understand why this rural district should be split up four ways. Seisdon has been part of Staffordshire as long as anyone can remember. According to the White Paper, Staffordshire remains as a county. Why, then, hive off Seisdon? Part of it is to go to Worcestershire-Herefordshire, part is to go to Shropshire and part is to go to Dudley, while the most populous part is to go to Wolverhampton. By a strange coincidence, I have had more complaints from the part which is to go to Wolverhampton than from any other part of the rural district. I remind my


hon. Friend that paragraph 29 of the White Paper says:
Where possible, existing county boroughs will be retained in order to keep the maximum existing loyalties and to minimise the administrative problems.
Surely, the wishes of local people should be taken into account—and the local people are overwhelmingly against being part of the West Midlands metropolitan area.
They have a great fear of an urban sprawl stretching all the way from Coventry right over to Shropshire. Many of these people moved into the rural district as a deliberate act of policy because they sought to live in a more rural environment, and they are horrified at the prospect of now being swallowed up. The area was also looked at when the 1966 changes were made. Then, all the continuously built up areas were included in the West Midlands conurbation. Seisdon is not part of this continuous development. There are large areas of open land that separate the conurbation from the rural district. I want to illustrate the case by quoting the problems facing education and the difficulties that would emerge if the White Paper proposals were legislated.

Mr. Graham Page: I want to give my hon. Friend the assurance now that the inclusion of an area within a metropolitan county does not mean that, where necessary, green belt areas will not be protected. They will, indeed, be protected, even though they may be within a metropolitan area.

Mr. Montgomery: I am grateful for that assurance, but the people of that area are still very suspicious.
I come back to the problems of education. There are three comprehensive schools in the rural district—one in the south, one in the centre and one in the north. The school in the south, at Kinver, which is now being enlarged at considerable expense, would cater, if the proposals were implemented. for children who would be living in areas administered by Worcestershire-Herefordshire, Shropshire and Dudley. Similarly, the school in the north at Codsall, provide, for areas which would be added to Shropshire, while Codsall itself would be annexed by Wolverhampton. Thus,

Shropshire would acquire an area that it does not seek and whose educational needs would have to be met by Wolverhampton.
I want to stress the tremendous fight that is being waged by local residents of Seisdon to keep the district within the county of Staffordshire. They are hacked by the local rural district council, by Staffordshire County Council and by all surrounding local authorities which are affected, with the exception of Wolverhampton, which is non-committal. In view of all this, I hope that my right hon. Friend will give second thoughts to all these representations before introducing the necessary legislation.

8.49 p.m.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: I will obey the strictures of Mr. Speaker and be brief. I have little alternative, since my speech, in common with the others which have been made, is non-political. The fact that it is non-political naturally limits what I have to say.
I will not go over some of the advantages and disadvantages of the White Paper proposals, because these were dealt with by the Secretary of State and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland), and reference has been made to them by other hon. Members. I am sure that they are right in making the point that there are a good many advantages in having larger authorities, but there are many disadvantages as well.
In last week's local elections, many of the large conurbations showed a national swing but, as political commentators pointed out, in many smaller local authorities the national swing was blurred by local issues which candidates had managed to get across in their campaigns. Therefore, to that extent it is a problem that will have to be solved when the White Paper proposals are enacted.
I live in Clay Cross, not part of my constituency but part of the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Swain). It is a small local authority with a population of about 10,000 and in such an authority it is relatively easy to command a good deal of public participation, especially when there is also a high degree of political activity.
Several years ago we decided that we would clear the slums, that we would not increase council house rents. During this period—despite being challenged at the audit and in various other ways by our opponents—admirably led by the hon. Member for Derbyshire North-East we managed to sustain that programme. The point needs to be made that, as a result of this high degree of political activity and as a result of the public participation in that very small town, the election figures in seven out of the last 10 elections have shown polls of more than 50 per cent.
In the last two years, when the pressure has really been on us, we have achieved a poll of 62 per cent. and 58 per cent. respectively. This is a problem that has to be faced by any Government dealing with these proposals. How it will be solved I cannot readily say, but having served on a local authority of this small urban character and having served on the county council for six years, under both Tory and Labour Administrations I know that it is all too true that there are degrees of remoteness as between one and the other.
At the first education committee meeting of the county council which I attended the first 16 items on the agenda were ticked off by the officials before any member of the Committee had spoken. It was at item No. 17 that the official suggested that council members might like to discuss the matter. This could not happen in a very small local authority, where the official is much closer and can be got at much more easily. We shall, without doubt, have trouble wth the bureaucrats in the large administrations.
I want to concentrate on one part of my constituency, Barlborough. I suppose that hon. Members will have had their letters from the Action Committee of Barlborough, a very small village with a rural district council striving in every way to get to one of the Ministers in the Department of the Environment. Only 10 days ago hon. Members of the Action Committee marched 160 miles from Barlborough to London—a scheme devised by someone not far away from you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The net result was that we were not able to meet any Minister connected with the Department.

Mr. Graham Page: May I assure the hon. Gentleman that the representations were brought to the attention of Ministers. We learned about them.

Mr. Skinner: I am pleased to hear it. The people followed up this exercise by demanding some sort of meeting, however brief, with the Minister to show the intensity of feeling that exists in Barlborough. As they see it, it is proposed that they should be pushed into Sheffield.
It is true that the Maud Committee's Report also made some recommendations and it was as a result of that Report that the Action Committee was set up, by people of all political persuasions. It needs to be placed on the record that the local rector allowed his home to be used for the meetings.
I have been asked to put the village of Barlborough on the map in relation to these proposals. The people there do not want to be linked with Sheffield in any way. The survey which they conducted as a result of the Maud Report shows some very alarming conclusions. The people involved in that exercise knocked on the door of the more than 2,000 electors in the village and the results show that the percentage of people who work in South Yorkshire was less than 13 and of people who buy food in Sheffield and South Yorkshire less than 2 per cent. Despite the fact that Sheffield, with its population of half a million, has many forms of entertainment which could attract people from Barlborough, only 3 per cent. or 4 per cent. of the people involved, in the survey—and it included most of those in the village—went to Sheffield for indoor or outdoor entertainment—and do not ask me what form it took.
Educationally there is an even weaker case. Many older people as well as young people are taking part in further education. Sheffield has many facilities for it. But only 6 per cent. or 7 per cent. of the people in the village taking courses were taking them in Sheffield. About 90 per cent. of the others taking further education courses were going to Chesterfield and Clowne. One can therefore appreciate why the people of Barlborough are insistent that their will should be taken into account.
I hope that the Minister has listened intently to my remarks on behalf of the


people of Barlborough and will meet a deputation, small and brief though it may be, to make sure that the objections they have made in no uncertain fashion will be looked at closely and that they will be allowed to remain a part of Derbyshire for a very long time.

8.57 p.m.

Mr. R. Bonner Pink: The debate has shown that hon. Members agree that the reorganisation of local government is necessary and that their local authorities should not be touched. There is no doubt in my mind that for efficiency a large single-tier authority is the best, but that for human relationships a small local authority is essential. Paragraph 13 of the White Paper sums it up:
…there will always be conflicts between those who argue for large scale organisation on grounds of efficiency and those, on the other hand, who argue for control by a body close to the people for whom the service is designed.
It is most important that the personal services should remain local. Yet education and social services are to be the function of the county authority. Unless the counties are prepared and able to delegate very extensively, local contact will be lost.
I am prepared to accept the principle of two-tier government. We in the Portsmouth and South Hampshire area have found it necessary for planning and major road construction to have a coordinating committee made up of representatives of Portsmouth, Southampton and the county. Where the Government have gone wrong in the White Paper is in the allocation of functions between the county and the county district. It cannot make sense to remove all major powers from county boroughs of perhaps 250,000 inhabitants or more which have used them wisely and well for a great many years.
I turn to the problem of South Hampshire. It is a unique and special problem. It was recognised by the Labour Government, as the right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) reminded us. I hope that this support will not influence the Government against the proposals being put forward by Portsmouth and Southampton. I am sure the Minister will examine them impartially and objec-

tively and will also have regard to the remarks made in another place by Lady Sharp, who has unrivalled experience in local government in Whitehall.
Out of 44 new counties, seven metropolitan areas have populations between 1,312,000 and 2,901,000. Of the remaining non-metropolitan counties only five have populations of more than one million. Of these, Hampshire is the only county comparable with the metropolitan areas. It is probably the fastest growing area in the country. The population is 1⅓ million now and will be two million by the end of the century. The county has a considerable amount of industry, and that industry and a large proportion of the population are concentrated in a narrow belt only 10 or 15 miles wide along the south coast. Of that 1⅓ million, 100,000 live in the Isle of Wight. The Minister has already agreed that the Isle of Wight is unique and must be considered entirely on its own. Four hundred thousand people live in the Southampton area, 500,000 in the Portsmouth area and only 300,000 in the remainder of the county.
It is illogical to govern this sort of set-up from the county because of the existing local interest. The River Hamble forms a natural boundary. The people on either side stand back to back. Those on the west look to Southampton for their major shopping centre, amusements, recreations and amenities. Those on the east similarly look towards Portsmouth. Portsmouth and Southampton have had extensive discussions and have put to the Minister two alternative proposals, both of which comply with the principles outlined in the White Paper.
The first proposal is to divide the proposed county of Hampshire into two counties, East and West Hampshire. The East would be based on Portsmouth and the West on Southampton. This is Maud with a two-tier outlook and will give two strong counties based on two strong and efficient county boroughs, each perfectly capable of expansion.
The second proposal was put forward by Lord Jacques in another place for this area to be a metropolitan area. The White Paper, in paragraph 31, stresses the sizes of authorities. In our proposals the sizes of the metropolitan districts are extremely flexible. Excluding the Isle


of Wight, there could be three districts, of 300,000, 400,000 and 500,000, or four districts of 170,000, 300,000, 330,000 and 400,000 and we could have areas of five, six, seven or eight districts from 100,000 upwards.
The Minister has ample choice from which to select whatever he thinks best. These are two reasonable alternatives, and either is better than the Minister's proposals. I am sure he will consider these proposals carefully and impartially.
I support the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Simon Mahon). As one of the Vice-Presidents of the A.M.C., although a new one, I add my plea to the Minister to consider the recommendations of the A.M.C. carefully and sympathetically.

9.4 p.m.

Mr. David Stoddart: The debate has been most interesting. I have learned a great deal about the constituencies of hon. Members, and my knowledge of geography, even about small villages, has improved no end. The debate should have been made compulsory hearing for every hon. Member.
I should like to deal with the general principles. Nobody doubts that local government is in need of radical overhaul. I believe that the overhaul has been delayed for far too long. Local government has become discredited and has lost much of the powers which it should and could have dealt with had it been reorganised 10 or 20 years earlier. Those powers are now being administered by ad hoc bodies which are not responsible to anybody, except to the Minister who appoints them. In my view, that is not democracy.
I believe that the present White Paper will not bring about the radical overhaul that is needed. It will be found that the White Paper merely tinkers with the problem. I say this because it is proposed to reorganise local government on the present two-tier system—a system with which the electorate has been bored for a long time and will continue to be bored for a long time to come if these proposals go through.
I am an unrepentant all-purpose authority man. I very much regret that the principle of all-purpose authorities is being thrown overboard. I also very much regret that my right hon. Friend

the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) gave the Government such an easy ride. He missed the opportunity to put forward once again the principle of the all-purpose authority.
Many of my hon. Friends have said that "bigness" is not necessarily "goodness"; that it is not necessary to be big to be efficient. I go further. It is unnecessary to be all that big to be all-purpose. What is absolutely necessary is that the people should understand who is governing them. Under a two-tier system it is so easy for one authority, one set of people, to pass the buck to another. This is why in local elections the Government get the blame. No matter how good the local man may be, if the Government are bad, as is the case with this one, he will get thrown out. What we need is a series of all-purpose authorities which people understand and know and can kick about as they feel necessary.
I believe that the Maud proposals were reasonably good. I do not think they needed to be accepted in their entirety. The concept of the all-purpose authority is good and could have been accepted but, at the same time, a greater number of authorities could have been created which would have been acceptable to local government and to people up and down the country.
There are two other matters that I should like to mention. The first relates to aldermen. I join with my right hon. Friend and others who have spoken with regret that aldermen have been given a reprieve. The aldermanic bench undoubtedly is an outmoded and undemocratic institution. The election or appointment of aldermen causes more heart-searching, more tittle-tattle than anything else in local government, and it tends to bring local government and the people who serve it into disrepute. I urge the Government to have second thoughts about the aldermanic bench. If they wipe it away, they will ensure that all who serve on any elected body are elected directly to it by the people whom they are to serve.
Perhaps I might make one further point about councillors and the difficulties that they encounter. We have heard from a number of hon. Members how councillors need better allowances, to ensure that they are not out of pocket. In addition, if they are to do their job properly, they


require secretarial assistance and paper and envelopes. Very few at the moment get the facilities necessary for them to carry out their important duties.
I have made no comment so far about my constituency. In doing so now, I shall be brief. When the Maud Commission reported, it mentioned Swindon and Wiltshire and came to the conclusion that nothing could be done about them. They were left alone. What I am supposed to recommend in the circumstances, I do not know. However, I know that when the Swindon Borough Council received the Maud proposals, it put forward a suggestion for a unitary authority in the north of Wiltshire which would have been a viable proposition. It has now put forward a further suggestion which splits the county of Wiltshire into north and south. I am not altogether sure that that is viable. But I hope that the Minister will consider this proposal seriously.
I urge the Government to take another long, hard look at their proposals and to take serious account of what the Association of Municipal Corporations proposed when it came forward with its original recommendations to the Maud Commission. If they were adopted, they would put local government on a very sound footing which ordinary people could understand, respect, and perhaps go out to vote for on polling day.

9.13 p.m.

Mr. Robert Boscawen: After this long debate, I am grateful, as a Member representing a Somerset constituency, to be given a brief over at the end.
My right hon. Friend knows that the county of Somerset is suffering a traumatic experience. It is no secret that his proposals are distasteful to many citizens of the county and to many county councillors. That is understandable when one considers how this ancient and proud county will suffer the loss of more than a third of its population. I say nothing about the compromise which it is hoped will result from discussions that we have had with my right hon. Friend. We are grateful for the courteous way in which he received representatives of the county council and a number of my colleagues.
I have only one point to make, and it concerns the functions of the county

authority. One of the conclusions of the White Paper is that services must be organised on a scale sufficient to command skilled administration. This is very important. Somerset is to become a very much smaller county. Today, we have efficient services, and we want to keep them, together with our skilled administrators. The principle has been conceded that the two new counties shall have a joint police force.
I suggest that the two counties should be allowed to come together with a joint education and social service committee and perhaps a joint fire service. If they could come together with such a joint committee it would take the sting out of much of the criticism and fears of the present division of the county. The fears of the education authority about the catchment areas and fears about the communications of the fire service and other matters would be overcome if we could organise joint service departments between the two new counties.
The initiative must come from the Government. It should not be left to the counties to come together. The Government must make the proposals and suggest the best way that it should take place and leave it to the two new counties to get on with it and to put it into effect.
We are glad that our experience and uncertainty will not be for long. I believe that the Minister, whom I congratulate, is getting on with the job of reorganising local government to bring an end to the uncertainty and the distress which is bound to be caused to many people.

9.16 p.m.

Mr. Michael English: I started out in local government with a bias in favour of county boroughs because I was a chairman of finance of a county borough, but marginally at the moment I prefer the present posposals to those put forward by Maud and the previous Government. I say "marginally" because both have one great fault. Both endeavour to impose an enormous measure of uniformity over the country as a whole. There is only one distinction made in England, namely, between a metropolitan area and everything else. It seems to me that there is a greater diversity in England than those two possibilities imply.
I plead with the right hon. Gentleman, when he brings his Bill forward, to put


in it a wide and general power for himself and his successors. I should like him to be able, with the approval of the local authority concerned, to place an Order before this House for its approval amending almost any Act relating to local government or the constitution of a particular authority. There would be nothing unique in this proposal. Strangely enough, the City of London can amend its own constitution by its own Act. It is actually called an Act by reason of its semi-sovereignty in this respect.
There have been many cases, in my experience—no doubt it is the experience of other hon. Members—where simple desirable things have proved impossible merely because there was one vast sweeping piece of general legislation, and nobody wanted to spend several thousand pounds pushing through Parliament a Private Bill which might be opposed.
For example, in some cases it has proved impossible to alter the management structure of an authority because one statutory officer could not be put under another officer. The right hon. Gentleman is a genuine believer in managerial efficiency. I hope that he will consider that small pettyfogging things like that should not be precluded because there is one vast national Act of Parliament.
Some of the worst authorities are those which, in parliamentary terms, are overwhelmingly safe for one party or the other. They become so solidly packed with members of one party or the other on the council—I have examples of both in mind, but I do not particularly wish to quote them—that they cease for all practical purposes to be democratic and become, at the least incompetent and in some cases worse than that. I see no reason for imposing on an authority of that type the pattern of election which is naturally suited and fitted for this House of Commons. I do not agree with the Liberal Party's views on proportional representation in general, because that would alter the national system of government completely and adversely. However, there is no reason that a particular local authority should not have a different electoral system from its neighbour, provided that it is democratic. When I say that I want the right hon. Gentleman to give himself the widest possible power to amend the constitu-

tions of authorities, with their consent, I really mean it.
The right hon. Gentleman said that he was proposing that the district councils should be rating authorities. Again, purely in the interests of efficiency, in this day and age, the collector of the rates ought to be as big an authority as possible, the one that can put the rate demand on to the biggest possible computer and switch it out across the countryside. The collection of rates is an impersonal service. It is a purely managerial, clerical job that can be done on a computer. Another reason why this responsibility should rest with the biggest authorities is that they will also be the biggest spenders, and I believe that the heading on the notepaper, or the bill that is the rate demand, should be the heading and title of the authority that is primarily responsible for spending money.

9.21 p.m.

Mr. John Silkin: The Secretary of State must have learned today, as his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland), learned in his time, that the Minister who attempts to reorganise local government is guilty—and I use the word guilty quite deliberately—of the highest courage, for he suddenly finds himself totally alone. In a moment I intend to take the right hon. Gentleman to task, just as almost every other hon. Member who has spoken during the debate has done, but, because I intend to take him to task, I think that I might start with one little bit of welcome, and I hope that this will just dent the blunt instrument which I intend to use later. I think that the Management Commission is very much to be welcomed, and I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman was able to announce that this afternoon.
I think that we ought to congratulate the Secretary of State's right hon. Friends, the Leader of the House, and the Patronage Secretary, on the exquisite timing of the debate. We have today been debating the reorganisation of local government, and only last Thursday the British people did a little reorganising of their own. I did not see the programme, but I was told about it: I understand that on television last Thursday the hon. Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones), said


that local election results depended on the personality of the candidates. That was one of the factors that he mentioned as differing from a parliamentary election. I do not go along with the hon. Gentleman. One thousand Conservative candidates suffering from a defect of personality, perhaps, two thousand if I am pushed very hard, but 2,800 strains my credulity.

Mr. John Gorst: A little local difficulty.

Mr. Silkin: I agree.
One point has been broached by only one speaker today, and that was my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon (Mr. David Stoddart) who saw that local elections are determined by national considerations. We all know that that is true, but my hon. Friend was the only one today to say so. Just as the Labour Government, in the days of their deepest unpopularity, lost seat after seat in the local elections three years ago, so, in a better time for it today, the Labour Party won back all the seats it lost then, and more. I am making here a strictly non-political, only local government point. It may not necessarily be such a bad thing that the electors do think in national terms.
When we talk of local democracy we may be confusing it with local government. There is a distinction: one wants the most efficient form of local government, but one equally wants an electorate who are aware that there is a difference betwen the two major parties, who believe fundamentally that one party or the other is best charged to deal with the problems of the time and who relate the national problem to their local area. I am much more concerned with the relatively small number who vote in local elections.
Here I must take the Secretary of State to task, as I promised I would. The objectives which he has set himself would be approved of by most hon. Members; the objectives set out in paragraph 6 are thoroughly praiseworthy—that is to say, that we must have an up-to-date form of local government, that there are too many local authorities, that many are too small in area and resources and that there is a great division or responsibilities and areas. But when the White Paper talks of getting local government nearer to the

people, we must remember that in a curious way it could hardly be nearer under the present old and admittedly unsatisfactory system. The very multiplicity of local authorities shows that the local authority and the citizens are very close together.
It is right to reform local government because we are moving into an age in which the small boundaries of the past must be enlarged, but I am not so certain that the Secretary of State is right in his choice of the two-tier system. It seems to me—I am probably doing him an injustice but I am constantly doing him an injustice, and I know that he will forgive me—that, in a sense, he has produced the solution before having fully investigated the problem.
When he considered the unitary system as Maud had developed it, it did not apply throughout the country, and he thought that the lower tier was doing absolutely nothing. One cannot get local government to work perfectly and valuably unless it is given a job to do. Mere criticism was not giving it a job. No one would want to go on it or vote for it. I hope that I am not over-stating the case.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby said, there is a very interesting situation in the Golborne ward of Kensington, where just such a talking rather than doing council was elected. The figures are still rather disgraceful, but to those of us who were brought up in London and know what London figures are like at local elections, they are very good. The vote in the Golborne ward for the community council was 29 per cent.; the vote for the local council in that ward was 19 per cent.

Mr. Peter Walker: I am very much in favour of this experiment and I hope that we can extend it, but the comparison is unworthy in the sense that there were 10 candidates in the more recent election, and massive publicity and a considerable amount of investment from the Rowntree Trust into the whole project. One cannot compare the voting figures.

Mr. Silkin: Whether the Secretary of State goes all or part of the way with me, he must come some of the way with me.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) mentioned the


valuable function that can be performed by neighbourhood councils. I agree, and in any consideration of local government we must not ignore the right of people to talk, criticise and direct the local problems and dialogue to the larger authority.
I come to what seems to be the most difficult question of functions, accepting that the Secretary of State has made up his mind—a subject to which I will return later—and accepting that for a while this must remain the basis of local government reorganisation. Taking it within the right hon. Gentleman's framework, what do I think he has done wrong?
If I were to accept his premises totally—on the whole he has produced what I consider to be a tolerable sort of answer—I suggest that when we come to housing and building generally, three important points need a great deal more consideration.
I like paragraph 23 of the White Paper, which says, about housing, that the service should be operated as close to the citizen as possible. This strikes me as one of those splendid proverbs—if it is not a proverb, it deserves to be one—of which everybody says immediately, "That is right. I have lived with this all my life", until the moment comes when one analyses it, and then one finds that it means absolutely nothing.
Even if housing goes to district councils, that does not make housing close to the citizen. I am ignoring the fact that the town hall may be a few miles from him, in any event. The closeness of the citizen to the housing problem occurs when, and not before, he is housed. It is, therefore, a problem of the number of houses that can be provided.
The London analogy is useful to follow. Like some of my hon. Friends who have spoken, I have been able to take a rather detached view of this because I have had no constituency interest. If the Secretary of State's predecessor had tried me in 1963, he might not have found me so detached.
It seems that there is advantage, provided it is properly done—for party political reasons there would, no doubt, be a dispute across the Floor of the House on this point—in the G.L.C. and London boroughs being housing authorities, as

they are, but I mean acting fully in that sense.
If one says to a London borough, "Only you may provide housing for the citizen", one immediately limits where the citizen can go, where his housing must be and his opportunity of obtaining a house. The current housing powers of the larger and smaller authorities—I am now talking in terms of "larger and smaller" and not "upper and lower"—enable housing to he provided over a much wider area. Further, a smaller authority—whether it be of 40,000 or 100,000 population—can see only part of the picture. It looks at housing in its area and does not see housing as a general need for the region.
I am thinking of the south coast towns about the period 1962 to 1964. A number of those towns thought that these was a need for housing in the area and, as the Secretary of State will probably recall, flats were built on a very large scale in a number of south coast resorts to cater for what they believed to be the demand. Those flats remained empty for years. There was a need for flats, but the need was not in that location, and it could have been much better expressed if they had looked at the need regionally.
That is the limitation of giving housing powers to district councils but only reserve powers—there is a query in the case of overspill—which are not very well spelt out to the county councils. This is a matter about which the Secretary of State ought to think very seriously. I suspect that he may well be thinking about it, judging from his expression at the moment. It is a means of speeding up housing, and a vital means. His expression at the moment is highly thoughtful; not incredulous, but thoughtful.
The citizen's need for housing is related to where he works. It must be so. He wants to live near his work. The work is not provided on a district council basis but on a regional basis. Where the work and the factories are, that is where the homes must be. That is the principle of new towns. I put that principle again to the Secretary of State in saying that this is an opportunity for him to amend the proposals in his White Paper when the legislation comes and to give concurrent housing powers to the larger authorities.
A minor point, but one which has a practical bearing, is the question of building regulations not related to housing but related to planning applications. I thought that the Secretary of State dealt with that effectively. As I understand the White Paper, the original application for planning permission is made to the district council, but the building regulations lie with the county council. If that is so, it ignores what is the general proposition when a developer wishes to apply for planning permission. He may obtain outline permission. It may become a detailed planning permission. Then he comes up against building regulations and so on. The Secretary of State has probably tended to ignore the practical defects of having the building regulations in a different area of responsibility. It is a small point but one which should, perhaps, be examined again.
Finally, reform of local government is overdue. It is overdue because we are moving towards a highly mobile society day by day. The small areas of local administration are no longer large enough. I give at least one cheer, and possibly even two, for the Government's recognition of that fact. There are factors which will enter into the whole of local government within the next very few years. In another place, Earl Jellicoe said that this reorganisation of local government ought to last for, he thought, about 50 years. Even if it were very good indeed—I have tried to say that it is not 100 per cent. good—I still think that 50 years is far too long. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen) put it at about 100 years, but he is a good deal younger than I and probably hopes to see the end of it. I may see the end of it earlier.
There are two factors to be taken into account. The population is apparently increasing at the rate of about 300,000 per year. That is more than the largest new town. I am sure that I would take the Secretary of State with me when I say that that is the equivalent of 100,000 new houses per year in addition to what we believed was necessary.
If this is so, where will those 100,000 houses be built? We cannot say at the moment where another 500,000 houses will be needed in five years. This is why anything that we decide at this moment

is only ephemeral and transitory. Something much more radical will be required.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Grimsby has maintained on a number of occasions—my right hon. Friend always had to make this point very clearly, because people had difficulty in understanding it—the Crowther Commission was dealing with the devolution of functions from central government downwards. People tended to think that the Crowther Commission was concerned with local government powers, but it was not. In an instinctive sort of way those who spoke about Crowther having a bearing on this problem were probably not so wrong as all that. The Secretary of State was one of those people, but consistency, as we all know, is the virtue of small minds and the Secretary of State has a large mind. The truth is that although Crowther was concerned with the devolution of powers down, equally it is bound to affect the evolution of powers up.
This has been a very long and a very good debate. In fairness, I must leave the Under-Secretary sufficient time for him to deal with the many loose ends which remain.

9.37 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): It certainly has been an extremely good debate. All of us involved in political decisions in local government have been aware of the very high quality of debate that has taken place, not only in this House but also in another place, in the Press, within local authorities and among local authority associations.
One of the things which it is not controversial to claim is the real welcome which has been extended almost universally to the Government's action in producing the White Paper. Without any doubt it is now totally accepted that there is an urgent need to reform local government. There is no doubt either that the timetable set out in the White Paper has been widely praised. Although it is tight and will impose a burden on those who will have to carry it out, in the circumstances it is seen as sensible and helpful.
It is not an unreal claim to make from this Despatch Box that the two-tier concept to which my right hon. Friend


committed the Conservative Party when we were in opposition is now widely seen as a practical solution to the problems of how to set about reforming local government.
Therefore, it is not only that there has been a wide welcome in the House today for the Government's proposals. Three out of the four local authority associations have been able to welcome the proposals. Very distinguished comments have been made in another place by the noble Lord, Lord Redcliffe-Maud, the noble Lord, Lord Greenwood, when he opened the debate for the Opposition in another place, and by the noble Lady, Baroness Sharp, who also made valuable comments in broad support of what the Government are doing.
The right hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Crosland) made one or two rather highly selective Press quotations. I notice that he did not quote from the New Statesman, because that completely supported what my right hon. Friend is doing. If we were to engage in an exercise of exchanging quotations, we on this side of the House would win the argument. I will content myself by quoting from The Times, which I think is a not unreasonable paper to quote in this debate, which said on 17th February:
In general Mr. Walker's proposals are an improvement on the previous Government's, which followed the Royal Commission more closely.
We could go on swapping quotations back and forth and I suspect that we on this side would win.
There is now this general consensus that we must go forward. That is an extremely helpful atmosphere from which to approach this situation. May I say to all hon. Members that the wind-up speeches have been deliberately cut to the minimum to give as many hon. Members as possible the opportunity to speak. It will not therefore be possible to refer to the large number of distinguished contributions, but I have already made arrangements that anyone to whom I do not refer will receive a letter from one of the Ministers in the Department giving our views on the points raised.
In listening to the speeches it seemed that they were broadly concentrated around two main points in the White Paper proposals; first the boundaries and

second the division of functions. I feel that I have an interest to declare with regard to boundaries because, with the possible exception of my right hon. Friend, I have read more local newspapers on the subject of local government reform than anyone else in the country—I have read virtually all of them. They give an impression of what is going on and the sort of comments being made. We have absorbed a large weight of opinion.
I am very sympathetic, representing in part a county borough, the City of Plymouth, to the views put forward, and the natural and understandable local loyalties and historical ties which have been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Dr. David Owen). I understand these loyalties and regard them as among the most valuable facets of local government. Everyone would accept that whatever we did, these loyalties were bound to be altered in some way by the nature of the changes which any party would be compelled to introduce if it were not to leave the problem completely alone.
The House will understand that I cannot prejudge representations coming from local authorities all over the country, which must reach my right hon. Friend by 31st May, by commenting on the large number of points that have been made of an essentially local nature. What I can say is that everything that they have said today, and which their local authorities have said or will say before 31st May—or in the extended time which we gladly give to local authorities where control has changed in the recent elections—will be willingly and gladly considered with great care. My right hon. Friend will take into account all that is said before reaching his conclusions.
One point I want to deal with on the subject of boundaries was raised by the right hon. Member for Grimsby and then by his right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. John Silkin). The right hon. Member for Grimsby criticised my right hon. Friend because we had drawn the boundaries of the metropolitan counties too tight for them to be able to cater within their boundaries for their housing programmes. I follow the argument and have heard it before in another


place. It was the right hon. Gentleman's view that we should have given them sufficient land to cater for their housing requirements within their own metropolitan county boundaries.
We believe that this is to say that the land within those metropolitan counties is to be immediately blighted for the purposes of housing development. It is, in other words, to encourage the "nibble" approach to our housing problems, to say that we will nibble outwards from the great conurbation centres without any very real, sensible and coherent regional plan as to where it will end. That is not a solution at all, because sooner or later we shall use up the land and shall have to face the question how to proceed on a regional basis. My right hon. Friend is quite right to put a close line around the metropolitan counties so that we are forced at this stage to face the real problems raised by the right hon. Member for Deptford about the population explosion.
We are delighted that we have seen the publication of the South-East Joint Planning Study which says that in that region this question has been faced on a regional basis and areas have been found, in conjunction with the local authorities, where planning and housing can take place in a coherent way. We believe that is right and my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Development is already ensuring that these planning studies continue at an enhanced speed. That seems to us to be the right way to go about it.
When the right hon. Member for Grimsby said that we are forcing central Government to remain in the delicate and sensitive area of arbitrating between one set of authorities, the metropolitan counties, and the neighbouring new counties which we wish to create, he seemed to feel it desirable that central Government should not be involved in that way. But I could not help remembering that it was only a matter of a few months ago that his colleagues were attacking us for removing the Land Commission, which was designed to do precisely that job of central Government intervention. The way in which London overspill has had to be catered for on a national basis indicates clearly that we cannot solve the housing problem of the bigger conurbations

simply by nibbling away at the edges of those conurbations.
The second main set of discussions today centred around functions and whether more of them should be transferred to the districts. We heard many speeches of great quality and interest on this subject, My hon. Friends the Members for Kidderminster (Sir T. Brinton), Blackpool, South (Mr. Blaker), Isle of Thanet (Mr. Rees-Davies) and City of Chester (Mr. Temple) all dealt with problems of that sort. They asked about the specific arguments for moving the functions more in the direction of the districts. I do not think that in the short time available it would be appropriate for me to try to go through the various functions and to argue out the case for each one. Those arguments are going on at great length. Hon. Members are free to express their views, and have done so, as are the local authority associations. My right hon. Friend said in opening how flexible a view he wants to take to ensure that the right decisions are made when he finally puts his proposals to Parliament.
It is important to understand, while we are discussing whether there should be a transfer of more functions from the district councils to the larger authorities, the alternative which we should have been discussing if the Government had not been elected, which was that there would be no transfer from any authorities, because there would have been only one sort of authority. All those who are now saying that we should give more authority to the county boroughs, for example, as I gather the right hon. Member for Grimsby did, should remember what would have happened to those county boroughs if unitary authorities had come into being. There would then have been only that very remote, planning-oriented sort of council, and our party when in opposition felt that it could not possibly support such a policy.
I want to re-emphasise the point that has also been made about the ability of the new counties to make districts responsible for the administration of many of the functions of those new counties. Certainly, responsibility will lie with the new counties for many functions. We have yet to make up our minds finally what they should be. We intend that the functions that should go, after close examination, Ito the new counties will


be based there, with the responsibility. But there will then be district councils, some of which will represent the large towns and cities, which will be viable authorities to which the county authorities can delegate the administration of functions for which the responsibility is at county level.
I should like to say a word about the position of the county boroughs. It has been said in this Chamber—and it needs no repetition for us to be convinced of it—that the county boroughs have played a magnificent part in the establishment of local government. Everyone pays great tribute to it. It is a negative way to look at what the Government propose, to feel that the great contribution of the members and their officers is to be lost to local government.

Mr. Dan Janes: They feel that themselves.

Mr. Heseltine: I accept that many of them feel that. But one of the very important messages that we should all try to re-emphasise for people in local government at the county borough level is that, as a result of what the Government are doing, they will for the first time have the opportunity to play a much bigger part in a much wider geographical area, dealing with issues over which they have no power now. The positive aspect is the opportunity for a new sense of partnership and working together of the big towns and their surrounding areas. For the county boroughs and the people now working within them it is an opportunity to which I hope they will respond when we make our proposals. My hon. Friend the Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones) made that point, and I am sorry that I was not here for his speech.
The fourth point on the question of functions arises from the contributions by my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool, South and Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden). They have undoubtedly played a remarkable part in the way in which they have presented the views of their constituents, who have understandable local feeling on the matter. They have been diligent to a degree in making my right hon. Friend aware of the problems. Both Blackpool and Southend have problems not only of county boroughs but also those arising from their status as major resorts. They exercise powers as county boroughs in pursuit

of their functions and interests as seaside resorts which are of crucial importance, and we well understand that.
It is no intention of my right hon. Friend that the very important functions at seaside resorts—illuminations, gardens, theatres, piers, amusements, parks and sports centres—should be removed from the control of the district councils which are certain to be based on the constituencies of my hon. Friends. It would be helpful if the British Resorts Association, which represents, broadly speaking, the holiday resorts, could let my right hon. Friend know what it thinks about the powers and the various divisions of functions proposed in the White Paper and what it suggests might be done in that context. We hope that it will take the opportunity to let us have its views.
A number of other points have been made apart from those coming under these two general divisions. The first is the question of aldermen. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that we have reprieved aldermen. We have done so to the extent that we are consulting the local authorities about their future. What we have said in the consultative document is that, if aldermen are to remain part of local government, they will not continue to have the present one-quarter of council representation but will have one-seventh. But this is a matter for discussion. No final decision has been taken. We are having consultations.

Sir S. McAdden: Has my hon. Friend noted that since the beginning of the debate no Liberal has been present?

Mr. Heseltine: It is perhaps not for me to make a comment on that.
Another point is the question of allowances for people serving on local authorities. Without committing ourselves, it is our view that the sort of people who have been referred to as desirable recruits to local government cannot be expected to be out of pocket as a result of their contribution. We are having consultations on this as well.
The question of secrecy was raised. I hope that my right hon. Friend was able to re-assure the right hon. Gentleman on this point. He showed clearly that the documents which we have distributed are not intended to be secret. They can be


distributed by the local authority associations to the local authorities, and there is nothing to stop them in turn from distributing them to the public if they so wish. If in future we need to have confidential discussions, we shall see that our documents are clearly marked.
I should have liked to mention the large number of other matters raised during the debate. We have learnt a great deal about hon. Member's views. The crucial point which emerges is that there is a very wide measure of support for the concepts of moving ahead within the framework of what the Government have said. We believe that the consensus view is: "Do it, do it now, and do it within the concept of the two-tier system." There are still arguments about boundaries and representations about the division of functions. We will consult, as we are already doing, the local authority associations, and we will take note of the views of right hon. and hon. Members. Clearly, beyond any shadow of doubt, we have decided to legislate in 1971–72; the legislation will be based upon the concept of a two-tier reform of local government, and we have no doubt at all that the new system will come into operation on 1st April, 1974.

Mr. Speaker: Before I put the Question, I wish to express my appreciation to the House for the way in which right hon. and hon. Members on both sides have responded to my appeal for brief speeches. According to my calculations, in the four hours eight minutes available for back-bench speakers, 28 hon. Members were called—an average of just under nine minutes a speech. I think that they were none the worse for that fact.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of the White Paper on Local Government in England (Command Paper No. 4584).

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Bill and the Shipbuilding Industry Bill may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. More.]

Orders of the Day — SHERIFF COURTS (SCOTLAND) BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Orders of the Day — Clause 4

OFFICES OF SHERIFF PRINCIPAL AND SHERIFF

10.0 p.m.

The Lord Advocate (Mr. Norman Wylie): I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 3, line 37, leave out from '1889' to end of line 43 and insert:
'(which provides that the expression "sheriff" shall, as respects Scotland, include a sheriff substitute) shall have effect as if for the words "sheriff substitute" there were substituted the words "sheriff principal"; and the said section 28 shall not apply for the interpretation of this Act'.

Mr. Speaker: I suggest that it may be for the convenience of the House to consider at the same time the sub-Amendments to Amendment No. 1, in line 3, after 'effect', insert:
'for the interpretation of this Act'
and in line 4, leave out from 'principal' to end of line 5; and Government Amendment No. 7.

The Lord Advocate: In effect, Amendment No. 1 re-writes the provisions of Clause 4(3), which is designed to amend the provisions of Section 28 of the Interpretation Act, 1889 by bringing it into line with the new terminology introduced by Clause 4(1) with regard to sheriffs. The 1889 Act used the traditional expressions "sheriff" and "sheriff substitute". The Bill introduces the terms "sheriff principal" and "sheriff".
Clause 4(3) as drafted falls down, however, in that while it has the effect of providing that in future enactments the provisions of Section 28, as amended, will apply, it does not provide that a similar result will be reached in subordinate legislation.
The purpose of the Amendment is to re-write Section 28 in such a way that it will apply to future legislation and also to subordinate legislation.
It would be wrong to apply the Interpretation Act to the provisions of the Bill, for this reason. The Bill does not use the expression "sheriff" in any general sense. On the contrary, it repeatedly draws clear distinct ions between sheriff and sheriff principal. Accordingly, it would not be appropriate to invoke the provisions of the Interpretation Act.
The first criticism of the two sub-Amendments tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) is that they would confine the effect of the Interpretation Act to this piece of legislation only, precluding its application to all future legislation, a result which, I am sure, the hon. and learned Gentleman would not want. The other criticism is that they would introduce in terms the application of the Interpretation Act to the provisions of this Bill, which in my submission would be wholly inappropriate.

Mr. Ronald King Murray: I accept the clear exposition of the Government Amendment which the Lord Advocate has given, but I think it unfortunate that its wording lacks clarity. I agree that Clause 4(3) as it stands did not meet the purpose and intention which the Government now seek, and I accept that Amendment No. 1 achieves that object. My difficulty is that the wording is obscure and, in a certain sense, contradictory, for there is something odd about saying, on the one hand, that Section 28 shall have effect in a certain respect, and then saying that it shall not apply in respect of the interpretation of the present Bill. I quite appreciate that the point is to exclude the Interpretation Act from application to the Bill. The Lord Advocate has made that clear. That is the obvious meaning of the Amendment.
The Amendments tabled in my name are probing Amendments and are meant to highlight the opposite of what the Government are seeking to do. I seek to bring out that fact that on one meaning the effect of the Government's Amendment might be self-contradictory and therefore I have put the opposite meaning, that is, to apply specifically the Interpretation Act to the Bill. However, I entirely accept the Lord Advocate's explanation and that the proper intention

is to exclude the Interpretation Act completely from the interpretation and construction of the Bill. It does not help matters, but it is important to be able to use the old terms and to talk about sheriffs substitute and sheriffs principal. I therefore do not wish to move my Amendments.

Amendment agreed to.

Orders of the Day — Clause 14

FUNCTIONS OF SECRETARY OF STATE WITH RESPECT TO NUMBER, RESIDENCE AND PLACE OF DUTIES OF SHERIFFS

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 9, line 5, after 'If', insert:
'for the purpose of securing the efficient organisation and administration of the sheriff courts, and after consultation with the Lord President of the Court of Session'.
The House will appreciate that subsection (4) of the Clause gives very wide powers to the Secretary of State to move a sheriff from one part of the country to another, provided it can be justified on grounds of administrative efficiency. We have always regarded a provision of this nature as essential. This flexibility is implicit in the Report of the Grant Committee. We have always regarded this flexibility—achieving the full and proper use of shrieval experience—as being essential. On the other hand, we have always recognised that it is a novel power for Scotland which the House would like to feel entirely satisfied about before the Bill goes to another place.
The question which has arisen on the subsection and which has arisen in more general terms on the Bill is to what extent we can interfere with the relationship between Executive and judiciary without possibly doing damage to or possibly risking the independence of the judiciary. I was indebted to the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Murray) for his views in Committee on this very important issue. At column 99 of the OFFICIAL REPORT Of the Committee proceedings on 22nd April 1 made reference to the fact that we were reconsidering the provision in what was then Clause 13(4) in the light of the representations made with a view to deciding what qualification should appropriately be put in the subsection.
The qualifications which the Amendment seeks to make to the subsection are twofold. One is to write in the words
for the purpose of securing the efficient organisation and administration of the sheriff courts.
That is the first criterion which must be satisfied before the Secretary of State can exercise this power. It may not be strictly necessary, but we felt that for the avoidance of doubt it was advisable to insert this clear proviso in the subsection. We have decided that the other qualification which should be introduced is a provision for consultation with the head of the judiciary in Scotland. We must naturally be very sensitive about the relationship struck between the Executive and the judiciary and we felt that as we were dealing with judges and, in certain circumstances, requiring a sheriff to move from one part of the country to another, it would not be inappropriate to involve the head of the judiciary.
I have reason to believe that this proposal might meet with the approval of the shrieval bench. I have discussed it with the Lord President of the Court of Session, who is directly involved in the Amendment, and I commend it to the House as being a step taken to meet some of the concern expressed in Committee, particularly by the hon. and learned Member for Leith.

Mr. Ronald King Murray: We welcome the Amendment and express our satisfaction at the two points mentioned by the Lord Advocate. It is desirable that the purpose should clearly be stated in Clause 14(4). It is always helpful where a limited purpose is sought to be provided in an Act of Parliament to have it spelled out explicitly if there is a risk, as there has been here, of people thinking that the powers taken by the Executive are excessive. The Amendment makes clear that only the limited purpose of securing the efficient organisation and administration of the sheriff courts is sought. Therefore, there should be no possibility of doubt that any greater power is being sought by the Executive or any sinister attempt being made to interfere with the judicial function.
We welcome the constitutional measure of spelling out consultation with the Lord

President of the Court of Session, and using his office as a bulwark between the Executive and the judiciary. In our discussions in the early stages of the Bill, it became obvious that it was a difficult and delicate matter to deal with these problems, and the solution which the Government have reached is a satisfactory one.

Amendment agreed to.

Orders of the Day — Clause 38

APPEAL IN SUMMARY CAUSES

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 23, line 33, after "Session", insert "on any point of law".
This is a drafting Amendment. The provisions of Clause 38(b) are clearly to the effect that appeals to the Court of Session from the judgment of the sheriff principal should be restricted to a point of law. In the ordinary case, by virtue of the provisions of paragraph (a), no problem arises where the appeal is from a sheriff principal who has himself acted as an appellate judge in the matter because the appeal has reached him in the first place on a point of law by virtue of Clause 38(a). It occasionally happens that a sheriff principal takes a case at first instance and, for the avoidance of doubt, we feel it is necessary to write in a provision, as in paragraph (a), that any appeal from the sheriff principal to the Court of Session must be on a point of law. It is with these considerations in mind that this small drafting Amendment has been tabled.

Amendment agreed to.

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 23, line 36, leave out "the judgment" and insert "an interlocutor".
This again is a drafting Amendment to make perfectly clear that the only appeal which is competent is an appeal from a final judgment. The term "the judgment" in line 36 may arguably be linked with the words "final judgment" which appear in both paragraphs (a) and (b). If so, that would not preclude appeals in other circumstances under Sections 27


and 28 of the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Act, 1907. If that result were reached it would defeat the purpose of the Clause, and it is to avoid that situation that this drafting Amendment has been tabled.

Amendment agreed to.

Orders of the Day — Clause 41

POWER OF HER MAJESTY TO RAISE LIMIT TO PRIVATIVE JURISDICTION OF SHERIFF COURT, ETC.

10.15 p.m.

The Lord Advocate: I beg to move Amendment No. 5, in page 24, line 10, leave out 'increased' and insert 'varied'.

Mr. Speaker: I suggest that the House should take Amendments 5 and 6 together.

The Lord Advocate: Yes, Mr. Speaker. These are both drafting Amendments which were tabled as a result of representations put before the Committee by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray). They are self-explanatory, and I am sure they will be acceptable to the Opposition.

Mr. Ronald King Murray: The Opposition welcome these Amendments which, as the Lord Advocate has so generously said, were the result of pressure from the Opposition. We are most satisfied that this Amendment has been put down.

Amendment agreed to.

Amendment No. 6 made: In page 24, line 13, leave out 'larger' and insert 'other'.—(The Lord Advocate.)

Orders of the Day — Clause 47

SHORT TITLE, COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT

Amendment No. 7 made: In page 26. line 28, after 'except', insert 'section 4 (offices of sheriff principal and sheriff) and'.—[The Lord Advocate.]

Motion made, That the Bill be now read the Third time.—[Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified]

Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY BILL

Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Mr. Bruce Millan (Glasgow, Craig-ton): The Opposition welcomed this Bill so far as it went. We have not changed our mind about that. However, even at this late stage, it would not be right to allow the Bill to go without expressing briefly some of our reservations about the way in which the Government have handled this whole matter.
The Government are removing the various elements of assistance to the shipbuilding industry provided under the Shipbuilding Act, 1967. We debated this matter on Second Reading and it would not be appropriate to debate it again, but neither on Second Reading nor in Committee have we had from the Government any expression of commitment to the continued prosperity of the shipbuilding industry, or any real view as to the place that the British shipbuilding should hold in the world. That is our basic criticism of the Government and their handling of their relationships with the shipbuilding industry. Nowhere is there a sense that the Government are anxious to see the shipbuilding industry succeed and to play their part in so doing.
In regard to the credit limits in the Bill, it is agreed by virtually everybody outside, by the industry itself, and by all the commentators on the Bill that the limits laid down are completely inadequate. Indeed, it may be seen that that they are already inadequate to meet the demands placed upon them and that they will become increasingly inadequate as the months pass. They are meant to take the industry up to the stage at which fabrication of new ships would start by mid-1973. That is a misleading way to put the situation if it is interpreted as giving the industry two further years of credit, because orders are going in now for work going well beyond the middle of 1973 and the limits are inadequate.
We have been promised that the further guaranteed credits for the industry beyond the limits laid down in the Bill

will be dealt with by some new method to be announced to the House before the Summer Recess. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry referred to this matter in a speech in Glasgow last week, but I am afraid that the speech was not in terms which make any clearer exactly what the Government have in mind. What the right hon. Gentleman said was:
The Government recognise that by one means or another they will have to play their part in ensuring that finance continues to come forward to meet the apparently insatiable demands of the market.
In so far as that represents a commitment to go beyond the £700 million, it is welcome, but it does not give us any guidance at all as to the form which the new credit assistance to the industry will take.
Nothing that has happened since 22nd April, when the Bill received a Second Reading, is likely to give increased confidence to the building industry. unemployment figures published since then have presented a very much worse position than we had before, and shipyards are largely situated in areas of high unemployment. The economy is stagnating. Trade is in danger of declining. Then we had the announcement in today's newspapers of the intention of four of our major shipping companies not to carry on with orders for container ships for the New Zealand trade in the changed circumstances, and obviously the Common Market negotiations are one of the factors involved here. As the shipping companies have said, there may be special circumstances in this case, but it is another example of a blow to the shipbuilding industry in a period when there is already considerable uncertainty because of the Government's lack of policy. It underlines once again the increasing urgency of getting some clear statement of policy from the Government.
I hope that the references to the promise of a statement before the Summer Recess will not be taken as meaning that we shall have a statement on the last day. I hope very much that we shall very soon be told the Government's proposals for extending credit for the shipbuilding industry.
The one matter which is of considerable relevance and which is new not only since Second Reading but since the Committee stage is the announcement by the


Bank of England last week of new credit arrangements—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a Third Reading debate. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman is confining himself very closely to what is contained in the Bill. Whether this announcement is contained in the Bill, I am not certain.

Mr. Millan: It is very relevant to what is contained in the Bill. I should explain that the guarantees in the Bill are guarantees by the Government of advances by the joint stock and clearing banks. The Bank of England's announcement has considerable implications not just for future credit arrangements but for the credit arrangements contained in the Bill. It is to those that I direct myself specifically. I should not feel confident to discuss the announcement, apart from its relevance to the Bill.
When the previous Government announced the increase in limits to £600 million, which was to form the basis of the Labour Government's Bill, the Paymaster-General made it clear that the banks had been extremely co-operative in making these credit arrangements available and that they had co-operated on the favourable rate of interest, then 5½ per cent., which was to be available to the shipbuilding industry.
At the time of the Second Reading and Committee Stages, the Under-Secretary made a number of obscure references to there being no purpose in the Government saying that they would guarantee large sums of money unless the banks were willing to make them available. At the time, those references were obscure. They became clearer last week when the Bank of England made its statement. I want to ask the hon. Gentleman, first, whether those references referred to the new arrangements for Bank credit which were proposed last week.
It seems that, whatever else the new arrangements will do, they will not make credit easier to obtain for the purposes of the Bill. I suspect that the new arrangements may make credit more difficult to obtain.
I notice that the Financial Times, in its editorial on the Bank of England document, made the specific point that the document needs clarification in its relation to special credit arrangements such

as the shipbuilding credit arrangements with which we are dealing. It would help the House if the Minister would tell us something about that.
As I read the statement and understand its implications, having read the commentaries on it, there is a likelihood that the general rates of interest charged by the banks for credit generally are likely to be higher under the new arrangements than at present. The argument is that this will be a price worth paying by industry for the improved flexibility of the credit arrangements under the new proposals. If credit generally is likely to be more expensive, this raises sharply the question of the interest rates which are likely to be made available to the shipbuilding industry on the sums which the Government are guaranteeing under the Bill when the new proposals come into operation.
The hon. Gentleman was asked, both on Second Reading and in Committee, whether he could make any precise announcement about the actual interest rates or whether he could at least tell us that the Government's intention was that the interest rates which would be available under the Bill would be fully competitive with those available to our competitors. I repeat that question tonight, particularly in the context of the new arrangements which I understand are likely to make credit more expensive than it is. If the hon. Gentleman is unable to tell us what the interest rates will be, we shall want a pledge that the Government are committed to saying that the interest rates available in Britain are competitive with those available to competitors of our shipbuilding industry.
We agree that the Bill should be passed quickly. It is a pity that it did not come before the House at an earlier stage in the Session. However, we repeat our dissatisfaction with the way in which the matter has been handled by the Government and ask, even at this late stage, for further clarification on the matters which I have mentioned.

10.28 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: I promise to be even briefer than I was in the main debate tonight. This is the only opportunity which we shall have, before the Bill leaves this House, to ask the Minister for any further information


he may have following the statement which he made in Committee.
Those of us representing constituencies with shipbuilding interests are naturally disturbed lest there should be the slightest danger that orders which may become available cannot be accepted because of credit difficulties.
We had a useful statement from the Minister in Committee. As my hon. Friend rightly said, we had the repeated promise that a statement would be made before the Summer Recess. We do not see the need for such a long delay before a new statement is made. As a fortnight has elapsed since the Committee stage, is the Minister able to tell us anything further about the nature of the new provisions to which we may look forward? In any case, may we have a reassurance that there is no danger of loss of orders merely by reason of lack of credit facilities?

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Dick Douglas (Clackmannan and East Stirlingshirc): I rise to follow the points which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) made in relation to the provision of the line of credit which is to be extended through the joint stock banks to the shipping companies and eventually to the yards.
In Committee on the Bill I raised this important issue of the discussions taking place between the Minister and the joint stock banks, when I asked the Minister:
What discussions are taking place between the Ministry and the joint stock banks to remove some of the banks' fears about so many of their loans and advances being at fixed rates over a relatively long period of time?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 6th May, 1971; c. 26.]
I recognised when raising that topic that that might encroach upon the Government's general discussions with the Bank of England and the joint stock banks on monetary policy.
My hon. Friend has indicated that there has been a statement. I know that it is difficult to bring this matter entirely within the bounds of order, but there has been a statement which has a distinct relationship to the granting of this £700 million worth of credit to the industry. There has been a statement on policy in relation to competition and credit control which directly affects the nature and function of this credit. The points I want to

put directly to the Minister are related to those which my hon. Friend made.
Will this make it easier for the companies concerned to obtain credit? During some of the discussions on the Bill there has been an implication that the Bill is unnecessary to the question of being able to raise £700 million. If this is so, will the Government be considering another statement of policy, which all the industry wishes to hear, and the sooner the better, and long before the Summer Recess? Will this mean that in future we shall not need legislation to increase this limit, that there will not need to be legislation to follow this? Will the banks be able to increase the quantity of credit flowing to the industry without necessarily increasing the price of credit which the industry has to pay?
These are important considerations which must be in the industry's mind at present, because the Government, through the Bank of England, are making substantial alterations in the asset structure of the joint stock banks. It may be that the Government will be very generous. It may be that this type of credit is to compete. The whole onus of the Government's policy is to increase competition between the joint stock banks. If the banks show competition in granting this form of credit, will the Government look favourably on other responsibilities which will be placed on the banks in future?
My last point relates to the eventual nature of the industry. What do the Government intend to do, under the terms of this Bill, and in terms of the future structure of the industry, to get the ship-owning companies and the shipbuilding companies closer together? We have seen today an instance which might have serious implications for the future of a particular yard. I do not want to raise any difficulties, but the shipbuilding industry and the shipping companies are carrying out policies which are not in direct opposition but which might damage each other. In granting and underpinning these credit facilities, the Government have a responsibility to ensure that future sums of credit are forthcoming, that there is a greater integration in marketing and policy between shipping companies and shipbuilders. I hope that the Government will not detract from that responsibility when they eventually make their statement on future policy.

10.36 p.m.

Mr. Ronald King Murray: My constituency contains a shipbuilder, Robb Caledon of Leith, with a high reputation as builders of vessels of limited size and repairers of vessels. They have done well in export markets by catering for specialised lines of shipbuilding. The company suffers from the unique disadvantage in this country that only the shipbuilders of Leith are not in a development area. This means that they have problems, and I have been very impressed by the way in which Robb Caledon have faced up to this disadvantage.
The Bill offers very little hope to a company like Robb Caledon facing an international competitive market in specialised shipbuilding. The difficulty is credit. People want to purchase specialised ships but want to know whether credit will be available. The £700 million provided by the Bill is not nearly enough. When one thinks of the additional methods mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan), it is clear that this figure falls far short of the needs of the shipbuilding industry.

10.37 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): I am grateful to hon. Members opposite who have spoken and to the Labour Party generally for the way in which they have facilitated the passage of this Bill. This is in the interests of shipbuilding, because the Bill is urgently needed so that the credits which may be advanced and guaranteed under it can be paid. It is right that the Government should pay tribute to an Opposition for facilitating a Bill in this way. Otherwise it would be difficult to draw money which is becoming urgently needed. No money has been advanced under the Bill before it has left the House, so those who feared on constitutional grounds need fear no longer.
I have little to add to what has been said before about the provision of credit for the industry. There was a feeling among those who spoke that the limits were inadequate. I confirm that, for long-term purposes, we do not pretend that the limits are adequate to finance the credits which will be called for in the middle of this decade and beyond.
Reference was made to the cancellation of the orders for Swan Hunter's which

we read about in the newspapers today. As I read them, the shipping companies did not allege that this was something to do with the Common Market. The papers made it clear that this was a decision taken on commercial grounds. Although that is a matter for the companies, that is what I read in the papers. The amount of credit which those orders have occupied will become available to other orders for the industry as a whole. The cancellation in itself, although a sad thing, in some respects increases the amount of credit which will be available for new orders.
I would be wrong to be drawn further than to say that the £700 million, plus the repayments which may be made during the current year, which we estimate to be £25 million, still seem to us to be adequate for the immediate purposes of the industry, until such time as my right hon. Friend can make a further statement about the future.
The hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Douglas) seemed to think that the announcement by the Bank of England recently about new arrangements being made for credit through the banking system had some bearing on this problem. This is not so. The consultative document is not even a policy decision. It is a consultative document which the Bank issued. It deals with the availability of credit for those sectors of the economy which do not depend on fixed-rate credit from the banks.

Mr. Douglas: I accept that. However, would the hon. Gentleman agree that some aspects of the consultative document have become not only policy but are now in action?

Mr. Ridley: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to answer for the Treasury in a matter such as this. I am merely making the point that the consultative document is about the provision of credit to that sector of the economy which is not drawing fixed-rate finance from the joint stock banks.
It is not unfair for me to say that it was necessary for this study to be brought to a conclusion before the Government could complete their study of the availability of fixed-rate finance for the shipbuilding industry. To that extent the hon. Gentleman is right; the document was a precursor of the second study which is taking place. I cannot say more


to supplement what I have said at earlier stages or to what my right hon. Friend said at Yarrow's last week, when he made the statement which the hon. Gentleman quoted. The problem is being urgently studied and as soon as possible, and certainly before the Summer Recess, any doubt will be cleared up by a statement from my right hon. Friend on the future of credit policy.
The hon. Gentleman will accept, for this reason, that it is impossible for me to quote the rate of interest at which credit will be available, whether it will be competitive with that of our competitors, or, indeed, to give any details at all about the new credit facility. As I said on Second Reading and in Committee, the terms on which new credit may be available simply cannot be stated now.
However, it is clear that work which is to take place in shipyards in the next few years is entirely covered by the amount of credit available, and we are tonight talking about the terms on which new orders may be taken after 1973 or even 1974; and this remaining doubt the Government hope to clear up as soon as possible.
I assure the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop) that there is no shortage of orders on which work can start in any shipyard, and I assure the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Ronald King Murray) that credit is at the moment not an impediment to providing employment in any shipyard in this country. There is still a certain amount of credit available for guarantees for any orders which may be booked for immediate construction in any of our yards.
I am sorry to have to tell the House that I have nothing to add to what has been said previously, except to reaffirm that the Government intend to clear up the matter at the earliest possible opportunity, and certainly before the Summer Recess.
The hon. Member for East Stirlingshire made an interesting comment when he said that he was not satisfied that the relationship between shipbuilding and ship-owning companies was right. But that is not a matter for the Government. How the industry does its business and organises its contracts between the ship-owners and shipbuilders is a matter for

the industry. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will pursue his thoughts in the matter in talks with the various industries concerned. I do not entirely agree with what he said.
The industry as a whole has to find ways of earning its living in future in relation to the competition from other shipping and shipbuilding companies throughout the world. Of course we want the industry to succeed.

Mr. Douglas: I do not wish to labour this matter, but on Clydeside right now there is an instance of a shipbuilding company and a ship-owning company at loggerheads, which seems quite unnecessary, and the attitude of the ship-owning company is possibly placing in jeopardy unnecessarily the future of our yard. This is because the ship-owning companies and shipbuilding companies have been at arm's length, which necessarily militates against the future of both sections of our industry.

Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman will not expect me to discuss a matter now before the courts. The normal commercial interests of the two companies of which he speaks are matters on which it would be quite wrong for me to comment.
Both ship-owners and shipbuilders have to find a way of earning their living in the competitive situation in the world. Both sides of the industry are entitled to pursue their legal and commercial remedies to problems as best they can. Of course we want the shipbuilding industry to succeed. But it is not the Government's philosophy to lay down a "norm" for the size that the industry should be and to say, "Whatever happens, we believe that the industry should build so many million tons in 1975, and the size of the order books should be so great." That is not what we are saying. We say that given the opportunities in the world market, and given the relative tax and subsidy advantages, and the credit advantages which the Bill provides, regarding the relative world position of our industry, the opportunities exist and are very great. But the Government do not plan the size of the industry.
If I were rashly to give a figure—which I shall not—for the size that I hope the industry would achieve, I think that that target would be greatly exceeded by events. It does not depend on the


Government or the House but on the efforts of both sides of the industry, on management and men, on sub-trades and sub-contractors. They have the ball at their feet, and I hope that they will make the greatest success of it.

Mr. Ronald King Murray: I take the point that the Minister has just made, but I wonder whether he would deal with the other aspect of credit facilities given to the shipbuilding industry by the Government. Would he not agree that it is vital that these facilities should be available at an early stage when offers are made? This is a factor in which the Government could play a big part.

Mr. Ridley: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has not followed our discussions on this matter. There are adequate credit facilities guaranteed by the Government to provide the money for all ships likely to be built before the middle of 1973, and the Bill ensures that. The area of uncertainty which remains is whether a ship-owner who places an order for a ship for delivery after that time will be able to draw credit at that time. So we are talking about the order book for more than two years ahead and not about the immediate future.
The Government have made it clear that they will make a further announcement on this subject within the next two months—before the end of this Session. If there is an area of uncertainty it will not last long, nor will it preclude ship-owners from ordering ships, because they may certainly take it into their own hands whether they believe that the credit which will or will not be available is satisfactory; nor do they necessarily need credit to place orders. Indeed, large numbers of export orders can be won which can secure export credit. It is not correct to say that there is a hiatus between absolute guaranteed credit and having no chance of obtaining orders. I accept that there is a gradation of risk, but we hope to take steps in this regard.

Mr. Ronald King Murray: The point I want to press and which I want the Minister to consider is whether he is satisfied with the speed with which credit facilities are given.

Mr. Ridley: There have been complaints about this in the past. It is one of the matters I have examined. The

Ship Mortgage Finance Corporation, which vets applications for home credit, is extremely efficient and quick. The same can be said of the Export Credit Guarantee Department, which vets credit applications for foreign orders. It is obviously one of the questions we shall have to examine, to ensure that the machinery is as perfect as it can be if and when we produce a new scheme of credit in the future. This is an administrative detail which the hon. and learned Gentleman can rely upon us to get as good as possible. Though there were criticisms several years ago about the speed with which credit was made available, there have been no criticisms in recent years.
I believe that the Bill will be a major contribution to the finances of the shipbuilding industry. I am glad that it is welcomed on both sides of the House. I say again that it is only an interim Measure until the Government can announce their further plans and thoughts about the future of this policy. I hope that the House will give the Bill a Third Reading now, so that we can make the money available which I hope will be to the benefit of the constituencies of hon. Members who have taken part in the debates on the Bill and of all those who build ships—that ancient, useful and important industry which operates in all parts of Britain.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Orders of the Day — MR. SERGE DESCUBES (DEPORTATION ORDER)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr Monro.]

10.52 p.m.

Mr. Antony Buck: I am very grateful for the opportunity of raising on the Adjournment the difficult case of a constituent of mine—Mr. Serge Descubes. I make no apology to my hon. Friend the Minister of State, in spite of the fact that he and I were both discussing similar topics—difficult matters of immigration—throughout the whole of last night. I do not apologise to him, but I think that it is unfortunate that I should have to keen him up again now


late at night when we were considering similar matters all night last night.
This important case is concerned with the humanities and with doing what is right to an individual and to his family. Mr. Serge Descubes is aged 32. He was born in St Louis in Mauritius. His father died suddenly of a heart attack when young Descubes was about 16. Young Descubes then left school to support his mother, two brothers and eight-year old sister. He had various semi-skilled jobs and also, I regret to say, periods of unemployment.
In 1962 he married. The first child of his marriage. unfortunately died at the age of eight months, causing the sort of bitter distress which the House will readily be able to understand. In due course Mr. Descubes made an application to become a student nurse at the White Croft Hospital in the Isle of Wight. He was assisted by the church authorities in Port Louis and on 29th September, 1966 arrived in this country and embarked on his nursing studies. On 6th June 1967 Mrs. Descubes arrived with their two children. They now have a family of four.
It was extremely unwise of Mrs. Descubes to join her husband in this country, for the difficulties of keeping a wife and two children on a gross income of £44 a month should have been obvious. But the system was, and, indeed, is, that the family of a student over here are permitted to join him in this country. Mrs. Descubes arrived in June, 1967, and who is to blame her for having joined her husband in that way? Whether it be right to have such a system which allows the family to come and join a student who has an inadequate income is a question which my hon. Friend and I shall, no doubt, discuss on a later occasion during the further progress of the Immigration Bill. But be that as it may.
All went well at first, but accommodation difficulties arose for the family, and in July, 1968 they were given notice to quit their lodgings. In spite of considerable activity, extremely humane activity, on the part of the social agencies in the Isle of Wight, no accommodation could be obtained for the family.
Mr. Descubes, naturally extremely upset and worried about the situation, and,

frankly, it seems, in something of a panic, left the Isle of Wight and went to Grays in Essex, where he and his family were able to stay for a short time with Mrs. Descubes' sister. It is noteworthy that the family were provided with rail travel warrant to take them to Essex by the welfare authorities in the Isle of Wight.
Mrs. Descubes' sister could put them up in Grays for only a short time. There then appeared on the scene, as it were, the local vicar, the Rev. Mr. Thrush, who, I am told, literally found this family sheltering under a wall with nowhere to go. Mrs. Descubes at this time was pregnant with their third child. The vicar—I have talked to him and verified the facts—managed to find them accommodation in a caravan, and for 3½ months that is where they lived.
Mr. Descubes had informed the hospital in the Isle of Wight of what had happened and had obtained from the hospital authorities a letter—I have it here—designed to assist him in obtaining transfer of his student nurse course to another hospital in the Essex area. That is a fact which I have verified since my last interview with my noble Friend the Minister of State. Undoubtedly, the hospital was fully informed of the situation. There is no doubt also—I have verified this—that Mr. Descubes was very keen to get back into nursing straight away. The Rev. Mr. Thrush tells me that he personally took Descubes to various hospitals in the Essex area with a view to his resuming his student training.
However, accommodation difficulties raised their head again. The caravan was not available indefinitely, and, in November, 1968, the Descubes moved to temporary accommodation at Stanway in my constituency. Mr. Descubes and his family were at this time a charge on public funds. His efforts to resume his nursing course having failed, Mr. Descubes took a job with a firm in my constituency, and he was, without doubt, encouraged in adopting that course by the welfare authorities. The family were moved out from the temporary accommodation at Stanway by the Colchester borough authorities and were provided with a council house in May, 1969.
In June, 1969, the Home Office appeared to have become fully alive to the situation, and Mr. Descubes was told


that he must leave the country by the end of July.
On receiving this directive, he came to see me. I made extensive inquiries about his case, and was greatly helped, as always, by Mr. Crayford, the Essex County Council welfare officer. After a short delay while making inquiries, I wrote to the then Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees) asking if he could
…have a close look at this difficult case, bearing in mind the effect of his
—Mr. Descubes'—
having four young children.
The hon. Gentleman reviewed the case in his usual courteous way, but arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Descubes
…must now leave the United Kingdom without further delay if he is unable to show that he has made definite arrangements to resume nursing training.
I am satisfied that from then on Mr. Descubes did make renewed efforts to get back into nursing training, and I attempted to assist him. I had further correspondence with the then Minister. The final letter I had from him over this period was dated 24th September, when he reiterated that Mr. Descubes must leave the country without delay if he was unable to resume his nursing training.
My information thereafter was that Mr. Descubes had been successful in getting back into nursing. I thought then that he had become a student nurse, but it transpired that what had happened was that he had been accepted as an assistant nurse by the High Croft Hospital in Birmingham with a view to his becoming a student nurse in due course. I have checked on this. He was in the capacity of an assistant nurse when he was arrested in July, 1970 and brought before the magistrates in August as being—as he was—in breach of his condition of entry, and a recommendation was made for his deportation.
This was not acted on at once. At the beginning of January Mr. Descubes was at last able to get back into student nursing as opposed to assistant nursing, taking up the first vacancy which had come his way, at All Saints Hospital, Birmingham. At about this time the case was referred to me once again. I wrote to my noble

Friend, Lord Windlesham, the Minister of State, about the matter, and was told that the Home Office was
…at present making further inquiries to enable a decision to be reached on whether to proceed with his deportation.
An appeal was made by Mr. Descubes in which he sought, inter alia, to raise the question of to which country he should be deported. But the tribunal found that there were no grounds for deportation to be to any country other than Mauritius.
I had further correspondence with my noble Friend, with which I will not weary the House, and I had an interview with him on 23rd April, when I made two main points. First, it had been indicated by the Home Office that if Mr. Descubes was able to resume nursing training he would be allowed to stay. Second, Mr. Descubes' deportation would result in a separation of the family, because there is no power to deport a family under those circumstances. Mrs. Descubes, together with her children, was minded—and is still minded—to stay in this country whatever happens to her husband, perhaps surprisingly. That is a matter for another occasion. She is entitled to stay here even though my hon. Friend the Minister may be minded to deport her husband.
My noble Friend rightly pointed out to me that the time lag between the assurance that Mr. Descubes would be allowed to stay if he resumed nursing training and his doing so was considerable, and that assistance would be given to Mrs. Descubes if she changed her mind and eventually decided to return to Mauritius with her husband. He aso stated that there was no evidence that if Mr. Descubes were allowed to stay here he would prove to be a genuine student.
In view of my noble Friend's reaction, which is understandable in many ways, I made further inquiries which involved talking on the telephone to the vicar of Grays, Mr. Thrush, the principal tutor of All Saints Hospital, Birmingham, and the chief nurse in charge of Mr. Descubes' studies. All spoke well of him. It was indicated to me that no doubt was felt by people who knew him far better than I, who had encountered him only at my advice bureau, as to the genuineness of his determination to complete his nursing studies. I reported these matters to my noble Friend in a letter dated 11th May.
I stressed in particular the following matters: it seemed to me that in all the circumstances the case had been made out for Mr. Descubes being allowed to remain in this country. I said that I thought that the case was overwhelming, first, on the humanities of the situation, and, secondly, because it seemed then and it seems to me now that it would be quite wrong for an order made such a long while ago to be enforced at this stage after Mr. Descubes has through his own efforts resumed nursing training; and, by all accounts, this training is proceeding in an exceedingly satisfactory way. This remains the situation.
I hope that in all the circumstances my hon. Friend the Minister of State will take the view that this is a ease in which humanitarian interests should be permitted to prevail, that Mr. Descubes should be allowed to stay in this country so that he can remain with and support, as he is supporting, his family and that he should be permitted to complete his nursing studies. I hope that I shall have a sympathetic reply to the case from my hon. Friend.

11.7 p.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Richard Sharples): My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) has made a strong plea that the Home Secretary should revoke the deportation order he made against Mr. Descubes last October, on the recommendation of the Colchester magistrates' court, which had convicted Mr. Descubes of the offence of failing to comply with his conditions of admission to the United Kingdom. There is not much dispute about the facts of this case. But it may help to put the case in perspective if I outline the circumstances in which Mr. Descubes came to this country.
Mr. Descubes, now aged 32 and a citizen of Mauritius, was admitted to this country on 29th September, 1966, for 12 months as a student nurse for training in the Isle of Wight. On the expiry of that period of 12 months, in September, 1967, he neither left the country nor applied for an extension of stay When he was traced he was no longer in possession of a valid passport. In the meantime, his wife and two children had joined him from Mauritius.
Mr. Descubes had moved from the Isle of Wight to Essex, and the welfare authorities in Essex did what they could to help the family.
My hon. Friend has referred to the correspondence between the welfare department of the Essex County Council and the Home Office. It is, I think, nor without significance that the last letter which the Home Office had, dated 18th April, 1969, from the welfare department of the county council concluded by asking whether there was any likelihood
of the family being returned by the Home Office to their native land".
It appeared that Mr. Descubes had ceased altogether to be a nursing student and had taken employment, with the firm of Woods of Colchester.
A firmly worded letter was therefore sent to him by the Home Office on 29th May, 1969, with a copy to the area welfare officer, explaining that he had been admitted to the country to undertake a course of full-time studies and could not be allowed to remain here for employment. The letter pointed out that Commonwealth citizens who wished to work in the United Kingdom must be in possession of an employment voucher before they sought to enter this country. Mr. Descubes was asked to make arrangements to leave the country on or before 30th June, 1969.
I do not think it necessary to recount in full the events that followed, except to say that Mr. Descubes did not leave the country. At a later stage the case was put into the hands of the police Mr. Descubes was charged, convicted and recommended by the court for deportation.
The Home Office inquired into what had happened to him since September, 1969. It appeared that he had become unemployed and drawn unemployment benefit, and that he had subsequently moved to Birmingham, where he had obtained a job as a nursing assistant. This was work for which an employment voucher was needed, quite distinct from training as a student nurse.
It appeared that Mr. Descubes realised this since he was, as my hon. Friend has pointed out, making efforts to resume training as a student nurse. He did


not appeal to quarter sessions, as he was entitled to do, against the magistrates' recommendation for deportation. The Home Secretary decided that, in all the circumstances, there were insufficient grounds for not acting on the court's recommendation. He therefore made a deportation order on 14th October last.
The deportation order having been made, Mr. Descubes had a right of appeal to an independent adjudicator on the question of the country to which he should be removed. He exercised that right and appealed to the adjudicator on the ground that he wished to go to Australia rather than to Mauritius. The adjudicator considered the case on 6th January, and decided that there was no evidence that Mr. Descubes would be accepted in Australia. Mr. Descubes was subsequently granted leave to appeal from the adjudicator's decision to the Immigration Appeals Tribunal. The Tribunal heard the appeal on 8th April and dismissed it.
In the meantime, on 4th January, Mr. Descubes succeeded in obtaining a place on a three-year nursing training course at a Birmingham hospital. He is training to become a registered mental nurse and has said that, if he is allowed to remain here, he will complete this course and then take a further two-year course to become a state registered nurse.
My hon. Friend has put forward a strong plea that the deportation order should be revoked. He has said that Mr. Descubes has made persistent efforts to resume nursing training. This may be so, though there is certainly room for difference of opinion as to how persistent these efforts have been. The fact remains, however, that he is now once again training to be a nurse—the purpose for which he was originally admitted.
The General Nursing Council, which had previously recommended against his being accepted for training, has now agreed that he may be accepted, and, as my hon. Friend has told the House, the principal tutor at the hospital and the principal nurse immediately in charge of the course now report that Mr. Descubes is a very satisfactory student and he is described as "dedicated to nursing". My hon. Friend has said that he has himself

cross-examined Mr. Descubes rigorously about this and that it is now—in contrast to the view taken in 1969, and quoted in his letter to the then Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Merlyn Rees)—his firm opinion that Mr. Descubes can appropriately be regarded as a genuine student.
My hon. Friend has also drawn attention to the position of Mr. Descubes' family if he is deported. Mrs. Descubes came here from Mauritius in 1967, with two children, in the circumstances my hon. Friend has described. But she was admitted unconditionally. There is, under the present law, no power to require her to leave, and it is quite clear that she is not prepared to go back to Mauritius voluntarily, even if her fare and those of her children—there are now four—were paid out of public funds.
If Mr. Descubes is deported, therefore, his family are likely to remain here; and while his wife should be able to contribute something towards their upkeep it is fairly obvious that they are likely, to a large extent, to be a charge on public funds for some time to come.
We have given very careful consideration to this case of which I know my hon. Friend appreciates the difficulties. We have considered the strong representations made by my hon. Friend. The decision rests on whether or not Mr. Descubes really intends to adhere to the undertaking which he gave when he came here originally. My hon. Friend apparently thinks that he will do so. I must confess that I have my own doubts, but even so I believe that this is an argument on which the balance must be fine.
I believe that the original decision, taken in the light of the information available and the circumstances then prevailing, was absolutely correct. But, in view of the very strong arguments put forward by my hon. Friend, and in particular the hardship which might result for his family, my right hon. Friend has decided that Mr. Descubes should be given the benefit of the doubt. I am therefore glad to tell my hon. Friend that his efforts have been successful and that the deportation order will be revoked.

Mr. Buck: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. It is an example of the extraordinarily close attention which we all wish to give to any case which can involve personal hardship, as this one clearly could have done. I hope that my

hon. Friend's confidence in Mr. Descubes will prove not to be misplaced.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at sixteen minutes past Eleven o'clock.

Orders of the Day — Second Reading Committee

Wednesday, 19th May, 1971

[MR. GEORGE WALLACE in the Chair]


The Committee consisted of the following Members:


Mr. George Wallace (Chairman)


Allen, Mr. Scholefield (Crewe)
Havers, Mr. Michael (Wimbledon)


Archer, Mr. Peter (Rowley Regis and Tipton)
Janner, Mr. Greville (Leicester, North-West)


Awdry, Mr. Daniel (Chippenham)
Jones, Sir Elwyn (West Ham, South)


Bagier, Mr. Gordon A. T. (Sunderland, South)
Kellet, Mrs. Elaine (Lancaster)



Loveridge, Mr. John (Hornchurch)


Brocklebank-Fowler, Mr. Christopher (King's Lynn)
Lyons, Mr. Edward (Bradford, East)


Carlisle, Mr. Mark (Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department)
Speed, Mr. Keith (Meriden)



Tapsell, Mr. Peter (Horncastle)


Cooke, Mr. Robert (Bristol, West)
Thomas, Mr. Jeffrey (Abertillery)


Fry, Mr. Peter (Wellingborough)
Weitzman, Mr. David (Stoke Newington and Hackney, North)


Harper, Mr Joseph (Pontefract)



Hastings, Mr Stephen (Mid-Bedfordshire)
Miss J. Beston, Committee Clerk.

Orders of the Day — CRIMINAL DAMAGE BILL [Lords]

10.30 a.m.

Resolved,
That if the proceedings on the Criminal Damage Bill [Lords] are not completed at this day's sitting, the Committee do meet on Wednesday next at half-past Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Carlisle.]

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Mark Carlisle): I beg to move,
That the Chairman do now report to the House that the Committee recommend that the Criminal Damage Bill [Lords] ought to be read a Second time.
This Bill follows upon the first report of the Law Commission to be devoted to a review of the major area of the criminal law. Although by the provisions of the Law Commissions Act, the Law Commission has a general responsibility for promoting reform of the law, members of the Committee will be aware

that by far the vast majority of the 40 reports that have so far been published have been devoted to matters affecting the civil law. However, by item 18 of the second programme of law reform published in 1967, a long-term programme for codification of the criminal law was drawn up.

According to that programme, this work on the criminal law was to be shared between the Law Commission and the Criminal Law Revision Committee, which is a very much older committee and which has done a great deal of valuable work on criminal law and was responsible for the recent Theft Act. The law with regard to malicious damage was one of the subjects assigned to the Law Commission.

I am sure the Committee will wish to join me in thanking and congratulating


the Law Commission and the Chairman of that very distinguished body on their work. The Bill, which has passed through another place, is in all but very minor respects the draft Bill as originally recommended by the Law Commission.

The Measure certainly does not purport to be revolutionary or sensational. It is essentially a Measure of codification, and its justification is that it will mark a gain in clarity and comprehensiveness over an important area of the criminal law. It introduces no new principles, except to a limited extent in its provisions for compensation, which deal with the principle that a criminal who damages property should be obliged to compensate his victim.

Briefly, the purpose of the Bill is to redefine the diffused and complicated law which now relates to the offences of malicious damage. It creates two main offences, both of which are set out in Clause 1. Clause 1(1) describes what might be described as the basic offence of intentionally or recklessly destroying or damaging another's property without lawful excuse, and then what has been called the aggravated offence referred to in Clause 1(2) of destroying or damaging any property, either belonging to the man himself or to another person with the intention of endangering another's life or being reckless as to whether any other person's life might be endangered.

In that manner the Bill simplifies and clarifies the existing law on this subject, which is at present mainly to be found in the Malicious Damage Act, 1861, and which has survived substantially since that date in its original form. The Malicious Damage Act, unlike the Bill, was based on the principle that it was necessary to spell out in detail the types of damage that might be committed and to classify offences and provide for different penalties, depending mainly on the type of property damage or destroyed, the value of the damage caused, and the means by which the damage has been caused.

Proceeding on that principle, and dividing offences in that way, the Malicious Damage Act is a fascinating inventory of the paraphernalia of Victorian commerce, industry and agriculture. While the Act, surviving as it has to the present day, deals

with serious basic offences of damage to property, many of its Sections are now never invoked and the sense of values implicit in its "tariff" of penalties set out in it would not necessarily commend it to people of the present day.

If I may take one extreme example, for damaging any article of
…of silk, wool, linen, cotton, hair, mohair or alpaca, or of any one or more of those materials mixed with each other,…
the maximum penalty is penal servitude for life. Whereas for damaging any manuscript or work of art kept in a museum the maximum penalty is six months' imprisonment. It is this sort of contrast in penalty laid down in 1861 and continued to the present day that I do not think necessarily rightly reflects normal penal attitudes at the present time.

Whilst I certainly do not propose to weary the Committee with an explanation of the various facets of our social history reflected in the provisions of that Act, I can content myself by saying that in the law dealing with damage to property we have today a considerable amount of complicated and often outmoded legislation similar to that which used to exist in the law of larceny before the Theft Act, 1968, introduced by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones).

Just as the Theft Act was a necessary exercise of clarification and modernisation of the law of larceny as it existed prior to 1968, so I believe that this Bill is desirable and urgently needed as a means of clarification and modernisation of the laws of malicious damage.

Under this Measure, unlike the previous provisions that existed, the importance of the different types of property, the importance of the degree of damage caused are left to be differentiated at the time of sentence, rather than they have been left in the past as a mean decision of the type of the offence of which a person is convicted.

As I have said, there is a need for simplification in accordance with modern principles, and this need is evident when it is remembered that the majority of malicious damage offences are dealt with by lay magistrates. It is desirable that here above all the law should be as simple and as straightforward as possible to


apply. The Bill in my judgment exemplifies these principles, and will be welcomed as an extension of the policy of codification already exemplified by the Theft Act.

All the evidence available suggests that the reduction of the law on theft to a comparatively few clear propositions is in practice working well. It has simplified the task of the courts without being detrimental to the interests of the accused. I hope that a comparable improvement will follow the passage of the Bill with regard to the law of malicious damage. Having said that, I turn to a brief review of the main principles embodied in the Measure.

The first question to be determined is what constitutes an offence of criminal damage. The Law Commission has argued—I believe rightly—that the essence of the offence is destruction of or damage to the property of another. The Bill therefore proceeds on the basis that the circumstances in which damage occurs, the means used to effect it and the value of property damaged may all be factors which to a greater or a less extent enhance the seriousness of the effect of the crime. As such, they are factors which should be taken into consideration by the court in determining the sentence.

The basic definition of the offence is that without lawful excuse A damages something which belongs to B, whatever method may be taken of causing that damage.

To constitute an offence, it will be necessary to prove that the act done was done intentionally or recklessly. There fore, accidental damage is not a criminal offence. The traditional term "maliciously", which has so often been a cause of misunderstanding and which can easily give rise to the misconception that a person must be actively possessed with ill will before he can be guilty of an offence, has been disposed of.

The proposal to rename the offence "criminal damage" rather than "malicious damage" will, I think, make for clarity, and the use of the words "intentionally or recklessly" rather than the word "maliciously" will assist in that matter. The phrase "without lawful excuse" provides for the situation in which it may be right to damage someone's property, albeit intentionally. An example of that would be where a police

officer, furnished with a search warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal, finds it necessary to break down the door of the house in order to execute the arrest.

Whilst dealing with the definition of this new effect under Clause 1, I should add that the meaning of the phrase "without lawful excuse" is further clarified in Clause 5. From that, it is clear that the term "lawful excuse" covers the case of a person who damages or destroys another's property believing that the person who would be entitled to consent to its damage had done so or would have done so had he known of all the circumstances.

Clause 5 also covers the case of a person who damages or destroys property in order to protect other property, when he believes that property to be in need of protection and the means adopted to be reasonable in all the circumstances. It seems right, for example, that where a person's property is in immediate danger he should be entitled to take action to defend it, even at the risk of damage to property belonging to someone else. Moreover, provided that the need is immediate—that is expressly stated in the Bill—he should not subsequently be guilty of an offence, and punished on the ground that his belief as to his rights in the matter was ill-founded. Clause 5, therefore, provides that, where immediate action is necessary, an honest, though erroneous, belief in one's right to act, is a valid defence to a charge of criminal damage which may arise from one's actions.

The definition of "property" and of the phrase "belonging to" is to be found in Clause 10. Those are important definitions, but they aim to be simple and as close as possible to common usage of the words. They follow fairly closely the equivalent definition in the Theft Act, with certain necessary adaptations to suit the differences between theft and damage. Real property, for example, can be damaged, but not stolen, whereas intangible property, such as patents or trade secrets, can be stolen but not damaged. Accordingly, property for the purpose of the offence of criminal damage is limited to tangible property, whether real or personal.

The definition of "belonging to another" is also found in Clause 10. The


importance here is that it covers various situations in which a person may have a legitimate interest in property of which he is not the owner. In other words, it covers people such as the tenant of a house, or the hirer of a musical instrument or of any other goods which are in his possession and under his control as a result of the hiring agreement.

The Bill has the effect that the court will not have to determine the complicated question of ownership nor enter into the various legal problems which have always surrounded the use of the word "possession".

Except in the circumstances to which I shall refer in a moment when dealing with the aggravated offence under Clause 1, it is sufficient that the property belongs to someone other than the offender. Clause 10 sets out in detail the definition of property and the circumstances in which such property may be treated as belonging to another.

I now return to Clause 1. This distinguishes between what might be described as the simple offence of causing criminal damage and its aggravated form. The differences are marked under Clause 4 by appropriate differences in the maximum penalty. The test for the Law Commission of what constituted an aggravated offence was not easy, but I believe that the Commission was right to reject—as in the Theft Act—any test based merely on the value of the property that had been damaged. As the Committee will know, that was the main basis on which variations in punishment were reflected in the 1861 Act.

The actual or potential consequences of an act of damage cannot be held in all cases to be a measure of the actual seriousness of the crime. What does introduce a difference of quality into the situation, and what has therefore been accepted by the Law Commission as the difference which causes a crime of malicious criminal damage to become an aggravated crime of criminal damage, is the question whether there is an intention to endanger life, or recklessness as to such danger.

Where there is an element of intention to endanger life, or recklessness as to such danger, it is immaterial whether the property damaged belongs to the offender

or to another person. Therefore, the distinction in Clause 1 is between the offence of damaging someone else's property intentionally or recklessly, without lawful excuse, and the more serious offence—in subsection (2)—of damaging or destroying either someone else's or one's own property, intending by doing so to endanger the life of someone else, or being reckless as to whether life should be endangered.

As its report shows, the Commission gave a good deal of thought to the question whether there should be an offence of damaging one's own property in circumstances other than those in which life was endangered. It concluded that that was not necessary, in view of the offence of obtaining property by deception created by the Theft Act. The view of the Law Commission was that if a man destroyed his own property with a view to a fraudulent insurance claim he was liable to prosecution under the Theft Act, and that the provisions of that Act were adequate to meet a case of that kind.

Equally, if a man destroyed his own property for a purpose other than to defraud or attempt to defraud, anybody else, one might think that he was a f000l, but he would be entitled to do what he liked with property belonging to himself, so long as it did not harm anyone else. That is why the Law Commission has not provided an offence of damaging one's own property other than in the specific circumstances—where it is done with intent to endanger the life of another, or with recklessness as to the consequences.

Clause 2 deals with the offence of threatening to destroy or damage property. Here again, a distinction is made similar to that made in Clause 1, in that it is an offence to threaten to damage one's own property only if the threat is made in a way that one knows is likely to endanger life. Under the present law—another example of the anomalous state of the present law—threatening to damage another's property is an offence only when the threat is conveyed in writing, and the offence relates to burning certain types of property or to killing, maiming or wounding cattle. There seems no justification for such selectivity. It is more logical and equitable to make any kind of threat of damage to property an


offence, provided that the threat is intended to be taken seriously by the person to whom it is made. That is what is provided in Clause 2.

Clause 3 is concerned with the possession of articles which could be used to destroy or damage property. Virtually any physical object can be used to damage property, and Clause 3 accepts the logic of that situation by making it an offence for a person to keep anything in his custody or control with the intention of using it without lawful excuse—or causing or permitting another to use it—to destroy or damage property. It is a wide Clause.

It goes without saying that proof of intent is essential before a conviction can be obtained. The Clause will cover the case of the person who holds materials for constructing petrol bombs or other means of physical destruction, which may not at the moment be covered by the Explosive Substances Act, 1883.

The construction of petrol bombs is a good example of the need for the rather general terms of the Clause. For example, the possession of a milk-bottle may be wholly innocent; the possession of petrol may be wholly innocent; the possession of cotton-wool or a wedge may be wholly innocent. But if they are possessed or under the control of a person with the intention of using them to cause damage, an offence is committed under Clause 3. The Clause is wide enough to include possession in one's house as well as merely having material in one's possession or custody when one is outside one's house.

Clause 6 deals with the power to obtain a search warrant for the purpose of searching for anything intended to be used in committing an offence of criminal damage.

As I indicated earlier, Clause 4 provides two ranges of penalties for conviction on indictment, both with high maximum penalties within which the courts may exercise their discretion. For the aggravated offence—namely, the offence under Clause 1(2)—of intending to endanger life, or being reckless as to whether life is endangered, the maximum penalty on indictment is imprisonment for life, which is the present maximum penalty on indictment for various forms

of arson, and for damage caused by explosives.

For any other offences there is a maximum of ten years' imprisonment on indictment, but under Clause 7 all offences except the aggravated offence under Clause 1(2) are triable summarily, in which case the maximum penalty available would be one of six months' imprisonment and/or a fine of up to £400.

Clause 4 provides a similar maximum penalty of life imprisonment where the damage caused, although an offence under Clause 1(1)—the ordinary criminal damage or destruction offence—is caused by fire. I shall say more about that in a moment.

Sir Elwyn Jones: Can the Minister say why the power to impose a fine without limit has not been included as an additional or alternative weapon in Clause 4?

Mr. Carlisle: As at the moment I cannot, but I shall consider the point during the course of the debate. If I have the opportunity to reply briefly at the end of the debate I shall do so. The hon. and learned Gentleman is quite right. There appears to be no power to fine on indictment, although under Clause 7 there will be power to award a maximum fine of £400 where the case is triable summarily.
I want to say something about the appropriate maximum penalty for the ordinary offence of criminal damage under Clause 1(1), because that apparently occasioned a certain degree of disagreement when the Bill was going through the other place. The issue came down to the question whether the right maximum to prescribe for an offence of criminal damage was seven or ten years. I suppose that the arguments are very evenly balanced. We must be absolutely clear what we are doing, and what is the purpose of a maximum fine. We are not suggesting that everybody charged with the offence of causing damage to property should automatically be sent to prison for 10 years. The policy of the Bill, like that of the Theft Act, is to provide, in the interests of simplification, a single penalty for a broad band of offence, so far as difference in degree of seriousness is concerned.
We must then ask what penalty would be adequate for the worst offences within that band, even if the maximum is likely to be imposed only rarely. The previous Administration, when taking the Theft Act through the House of Commons, decided that imprisonment of 10 years was the right maximum penalty. If that is the appropriate maximum for certain offences under the Theft Act it is equally appropriate for offences under Clause 1(1).
It is difficult to say which class of offence is the worst. Some cases of damage are more serious than many cases of theft, and vice versa. With these considerations in mind the Government think that the Law Commission was right in finally recommending that the precedent of the Theft Act should be followed, and that the maximum penalty should be 10 years.
I may be asked what cases would require the award of so high a penalty as 10 years. There is the question of possessing materials for the construction of petrol bombs—an offence that might be of the utmost gravity. Some cases are now prosecuted under Section 10 of the Malicious Damage Act, 1861, although that is not a widely used Section. Under that Section, it is an offence, with a maximum of 14 years' imprisonment, to place explosives in or near any building with a view to destroying it, or any machinery or fixtures therein.
It is felt that that Section is more appropriate than the Explosive Substances Act for dealing with attempts at safe-blowing in the course of a major burglary. The number of cases is unlikely to be large, but prosecutions have been brought under the Malicious Damage Act in recent years against safe breakers who were foiled in their attempts before the explosive charge was detonated. Crimes of that type could in future be prosecuted under the Bill, either as an attempt or, under Clause 3, for possession. It seems right, therefore, that the maximum penalty should be left at 10 years.
There is one other point to which I wish to refer concerning penalties. It is an important one. I referred just now to the maximum penalty of life imprisonment where the damage or destruction is caused by fire. The Committee will be

aware that the Bill abolishes the crime of arson, both in its statutory form in the Malicious Damage Act and specifically, by Clause 11(1), which provides that
The common law offence of arson is hereby abolished.
Yet the Law Commission, having decided to abolish arson, has to ask itself whether there were any means by which it should distinguish between those who commit offences of fire raising and those who commit other offences of malicious damage. The special treatment accorded to fire-raising offences by extending the maximum penalty under Clause 4(1) is intended to suit and to meet the peculiar features of this type of offence without at the same time forfeiting what it believed was the clarity and coherence of the general structure of the Bill by limiting it to two types of offences.
On the one hand, many fire-raising offences are comparatively trivial—although always deplorable—examples of juvenile vandalism. They can be adequately dealt with by the magistrates' courts. Under the provisions of the Bill that would be possible. On the other hand, the potential danger from anyone who deliberately starts a fire is very great. Arson has always created a justifiable sense of horror in the public mind. On occasions an arsonist may be afflicted with a serious personality defect, of which the desire to create a blaze merely because he likes to see the fire engines come out may be only one symptom.
In such cases in recent years the courts have found considerable value in the sentence of life imprisonment, in relation to those charged with the offence of arson. It provides a means to protect the public from a man whose mind often appears to be unbalanced—not, perhaps, to the extent that would qualify him for a hospital order under Part 5 of the Mental Health Act, 1959, but to the extent that there is a real danger that if released he would repeat the offence.
The Bill therefore leaves the power to the court, where the damage is created by fire, to impose a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, but leaves it full discretion to pass lesser sentences in less serious cases. As I have said, minor cases can be disposed of in the magistrates' courts.
It was against that background and on that basis that the Law Commission considered that there was no need to retain the offence of arson as such. That is a controversial point. It is open to argument. The Bar Council, for one, expressed strong views in its earlier comments to the Law Commission, subsequently arguing strongly that the specific offence of arson should be retained.
As drafted the Bill follows the Law Commission's recommendations and abolishes the offence of arson. On behalf of the Home Office, however, I can say that I shall listen with interest to any arguments put forward by the Committee. This Bill does not arouse party conflict, but lawyers on both sides are anxious to get the law right. I feel that we should listen carefully to any views that anybody wishes to express on the question whether or not we should retain the offence of arson, and that we should consider what is said in the course of the debate on the Bill.
So much for penalties. I should now like to refer to Clause 8, which deals with the power to award compensation—something which I mentioned earlier. In Clause 8 the Bill, to a degree, breaks new ground, although what is being done is consistent with the proposals of the Widgery Committee and also with what the present Government said on this matter during the election.
At present, the magistrates' courts may order compensation in cases of damage of property up to £100. But in most cases compensation orders require application by the person who suffered loss before they can be made. It is within the knowledge of any lawyer on the Committee that there is considerable lack of clarity in people's minds whether it is necessary to make an application before an order for compensation can be granted, and matters of that nature. I have always felt that it was restrictions of that nature which had often inhibited courts in making orders for compensation where they would otherwise have been willing to do so.
Clause 8 proposes that in all cases the magistrates' court shall have power of its own volition, whether or not any application is made by the loser, to order compensation subject to a maximum of £400. There is no maximum in the higher courts.
I hope that this provision will be welcome. It is in accordance with the recommendation of the Advisory Council on the Penal System in its report published last autumn on reparation of the offender. I may have a certain personal bias on this matter, since I happened to be a very humble member of that subcommittee sitting under the present Lord Chief Justice, then Lord Justice Widgery, which made recommendations for the simplification and clarification of the law with regard to compensation. I have no doubt this proposal fits within the recommendations of that Committee, and I commend it to the House.
Clause 9 deals with the effect of the Bill on civil proceedings, and is similar to Section 31 of the Theft Act, 1968.
I apologise to the Committee for having taken some time to introduce what is a fairly complicated provision of the Bill, although, as I said, its purpose is simple. I believe that here we have a Measure which will help to bring clarity and simplification into an important area of the criminal law and which affects, particularly, many cases appearing before the magistrates' courts. I confidently recommend it and invite the Committee to give it a Second Reading.

11.12 a.m.

Sir Elwyn Jones: On my way here this morning I walked through the Embankment Gardens between the Temple and Temple Station. There is a charming fountain there. It was erected in June, 1898, from subscriptions from children in memory of work done for the temperance cause by the Lady Somerset. There used to be a charming bronze statue of a child on top of the fountain. It has been sawn off at ankle level, and today one sees two feet on top of this touching memorial. A terrible example of an evil feature of our contemporary society. I pray no foreign photographer sees it, and I hope that the G.L.C. may soon make up for the evil that the vandal achieved; the crime committed.
This reflects one of the mischiefs against which the Bill is directed. I welcome the measure for the fact that to some extent it will help deter vandals and perpetrators of acts of destruction for profit, as was obviously the case in removing that statue for its bronze. It will penalise also those who destroy property senselessly, just for the fun of it.
The effect of the Bill was a little over-dramatised in The Times headline when it came up with:
Vandals face jail for life under terms of new Criminal Bill.
When we on the Opposition side were discussing whether we should agree to the Second Reading procedure, and I thought that that was a sensible course to take, some of my hon. Friends said: "We cannot do that. This is the Tory Party in action, as it has been down the ages, attaching more importance to crimes against property than crimes against the individual." Happily that is a caricature of the provisions of the Bill and imprisonment for life, we have been told, is confined to the crimes of arson and destruction of property with an intent to endanger the life of another, or reckless as to whether the life of another would be thereby endangered.
As the Under-Secretary has said, the language of Clause 1 is very wide and the penalties are very considerable: 10 years and life. One has a slight fear that this may lead some of the courts to impose rather heavier penalties than the crime justifies. We must clearly be aware in our state of concern about this problem, and not become victims of what Sir Nigel Playfair called "the punitive obsession". But the present phase of damage by arson and other means presents a challenge to our society which must be faced, and it is right that the armoury of the law should be adequate to deal with it severely in appropriate cases.
One aspect of crimes to property which is of the gravest character, and is increasing alarmingly, is arson. The report of the Law Commission—and I share the gratitude that we feel to the Law Commission for the report and its work on the Bill—gives the figures. At assizes and quarter sessions in 1964, 218 cases of arson; 1968, 308. I fear that the figures in the last two years will have shown a further increase. In Magistrates' courts—225 in 1964; 315 in 1968. The appalling thing is that in both categories most of the offences are committed by those under the age of 21.
Bearing in mind the gravity of this increasing menace—and we have seen recently the most dreadful example of what death and destruction it can cause—

I was gratified that the Law Commission changed the provisional view which it expressed in its working paper that there was no need to distinguish in any way offences of damage to property caused by fire. The Bill clearly makes that distinction.
I still have an open mind whether it would not have been better to retain arson as a crime, or at least to have retained arson as a word—a description—in the Bill. It is a well-known word, a well-known crime. It is a crime to which the public reacts. The publicity attached to "arson" has a way of being more effective, I think, than it has to damage caused by fire. There is some value in retaining some of these evocative words, provided no mischief is caused as a result.
I certainly want a close examination of this in Standing Committee stage and I, personally, shall be very interested to hear what other Members have to say about it. There is no party issue here. I am bound to say that I am impressed by the seriousness of the increase in the volume of arson. Indeed, one of Her Majesty's most distinguished judges expressed this concern personally to me only a couple of days ago.
The Bill in its penalty attached for arson goes the whole hog, if that is not too unattractive a phrase. It provides for the maximum penalty of imprisonment for life. That is justified, not only because of the challenge and the frequency of this crime, but, as the Law Commission points out, because many arsonists are mentally unbalanced and in need of treatment, yet frequently they do not qualify for admission under Section 60 of the Mental Health Act. It is right to have provisions enabling arsonists, fire-raisers, pyromaniacs—whatever they are called—to be kept in detention for psychological and psychiatric treatment as long as is necessary. This is obviously very important. Imprisonment for life is a flexible sentence, and I entirely agree with the appropriateness of its availability for the kind of situation for which Clause 1(2) of the Bill provides.
The Bill gives effect to the recomendations of the Law Commission, which in its analysis of the statistics of crimes against property, points out that most were dealt with in magistrates' courts. Very few called for heavy sentences and imprisonment and the crime was very


prevalent among juveniles. It recommended, because of those conclusions, that as the brunt of the work is done it the magistrates courts the law should be simple and straightforward. In any event, I do not see why the law should not be simple and straightforward for the higher judiciary as well.
One has had experience in the Court of Appeal—and I say this without any disrespect to the distinguished members of the judiciary—that even they can sometimes err, particularly on malicious damage. I remember, with some apprehension, my own experience of the ease with which one could make some mess of a summing-up in regard to malicious damage. I do not think I was actually caught out myself, but once or twice I am sure it must have been a narrow squeak.
Therefore we, on this side of the Committee welcome this simplification in the law and the wide latitude given in regard to the range of penalties, providing for higher maximum penalties in particularly serious cases. The worry I still have is that the wide range and the wide language might encourage courts to punish excessively. But, happily, we have the remedy of the Court of Appeal, and in these days it is more willing to interfere with excessive sentences than it used to be in the old days.
The conception of the aggravated offence I find wholly acceptable. The test of potential consequences, thereby enabling the especially blameworthy offender to be identified and punished, is right.
In the definition in Clause 10 of property damaged, I see that there are certain exclusions; mushrooms growing wild, and wild flowers; wild animals save those reduced into possession or in the course of being so reduced. But in case the poacher and the picker of wild flowers might feel encouraged by the omission from the sanctions, it is the case that those crimes are penalisable under the Theft Act and other provisions of the law.
It would be deplorable if, for instance, the attempt to protect the osprey were to be destroyed by the amendment of the law. I had better not say any more about that matter, which I hope will very soon be sub judice, if those who are

responsible are caught, as we greatly hope they will be. I have no criticism of that. As to the mental element, as I have indicated, I am quite happy that "unlawfully and maliciously" have gone the way of all flesh and that "without lawful excuse" has come into the Bill.
I confess that at the moment I find it hard to conceive of a situation where there can be a lawful excuse for damaging property, intending to destroy it and intending to endanger the life of another. But I suppose that there is some remote possibility of some gentleman with a machine gun, or whatever, in a building and that the police and the soldiery might be required to knock the building down, or whatever, in order to subdue him. Perhaps we can look at that in Standing Committee, but at the moment it does seem a remarkable occasion that one could call in aid the principle of lawful excuse to justify what was done.
We shall have to look at the penalties in Standing Committee. I notice, in passing, that Clause 11(2) drives another nail in the coffin of the death penalty. That is not a very suitable metaphor—though perhaps it is quite suitable, come to think of it. It does away with The Dockyards, etc., Protection Act 1772:
(under which it is a capital offence to set on fire. burn or otherwise destroy Her Majesty's ships, dockyards, stores, …
I suppose that hereafter that will be liable to either 10 years or life, depending on the circumstances. But we can say farewell to that provision without tears, and reflect that now only a very small segment of criminal misconduct carries the risk of the death penalty. I hope that that will be universally greeted in the Committee, although I venture to doubt it.
With regard to the jurisdiction, the Bill provides that offences punishable with life will not be triable by courts of quarter session, but otherwise the newly defined crimes will be triable. That is satisfactory.
I welcome the provision in regard to compensation. I was a little put off the provision when the Under-Secretary described it as a Tory election pledge. Were that the ground for introducing it, it would be regarded by me as a kiss of death. But he gave a more respectable reason for it, namely the reports by distinguished Committees—of one of which


he was himself a distinguished member—which had commended this provision.
I am bound to say that I found impressive the observations of the Justices Clerks' Society that the public is concerned less with the legal niceties of jurisdiction between criminal and civil courts than with the elementary justice of ensuring that defendants who cause damage and involve loss should pay compensation. I am sure that we all heartily endorse that observation, and the Bill will give greater powers to the courts to order compensation. As the Under-Secretary has pointed out, there will be no need for the victim to apply and there will be no limit to the amount recoverable in the case of offences tried by indictment.
My hon. Friends and I welcome the Bill. Though a number of issues will have to be raised in Committee, we think that the Bill makes an important contribution to the protection of our society, at a time when protection is needed.

11.30 a.m.

Mr. Michael Havers: I, too, welcome the Bill as a whole. I want to take up the Minister's invitation on the one exception that I have to the Bill, which concerns the abolition of the offence of arson. I liked the comment made by the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones), that arson should be retained as a word, or as a description. It has the advantage that it is easily and quickly recognisable. Apart from crimes involving the use of explosives, I suppose that arson is the most dangerous offence—or the offence most likely to be dangerous—involving the use of fire, weapons or anything else. About two years ago in Brighton a fire in a hotel led to a dreadful loss of life. I think that seven people died, and about the same number died only a few days ago in London.
Arson is committed for a number of reasons. It usually indicates that the person who commits it is an exceptional kind of person. Spite is often the motive, and the offender is often a person—sometimes called a pyromaniac—who has deep mental trouble. From one's experience in the courts one has come across the man who has been convicted of arson. On looking at his records one

has found that he has committed the offence of arson a number of times before.
He may have started by burning down an outhouse. He then may have progressed to straw stacks. In the country that is often done for reasons which are impossible to discover. Sometimes, as the Minister has said, the man likes to watch the fire engines and he enjoys all the excitement. Very often he is the first to volunteer to join in helping to put out the fire.
It is important that the nature of the offence with which the man is either charged or has been convicted should be quickly recognised by the court, the probation officer, the prison doctor and the psychiatrists who may be called in at any stage, both before and after conviction. I regret that the Law Commission, whose report is otherwise excellent, has seen fit to say that that would merely lead to a complication of the substantive law, when such complication as there might be had already, in a sense, been created by the Commission in its recommendation of a special penalty for cases involving fire.
The Law Reform Committee of the Bar Council dealt with this question. After the publication of the report of the Law Commission it made a unanimous recommendation opposing the abolition of the offence of arson. The Committee is made up of a number of practising lawyers, some of whom sit judicially and many of whom, I suspect, have been prosecuting or defending cases of this kind. That unanimous decision is something that the Committee and the Home Office ought to bear very much in mind for the future.
The other forms of malicious damage are hooliganism and vandalism, or are acts committed for personal gain, as in the case of persons who damage property in order to benefit from the insurance, or who exercise spite against friends by breaking shop windows, and so on. That sort of person is sometimes easily recognisable for the offence he has committed, and the motives behind it are easily recognisable.
But the arsonist—the pyromaniac—generally falls into a special category. Arson is not only an offence that ought


to be retained because it is so well recognised by the public; it should be retained because it will enable all those concerned with the administration of the law—lawyers, the prison doctors, psychiatrists, and others—to recognise at once that this may be one of those cases which must be looked at in a special way. I hope very much that the Minister will reconsider the point.

11.35 a.m.

Mr. John Loveridge: I support the view of my hon. Friend that the offence of arson should be retained. When considering the question of sentence after conviction a court must know much more clearly what kind of man it is dealing with if it knows that there have been two or three previous offences of arson. If it is merely told that there have been two or three previous offences of criminal damage no such indication is given. I hope that the Government will consider this point.
Secondly, I wonder whether the Government will consider lower maximum sentences for recklessness? Should there not be a separate offence for that? It seems extraordinarily difficult. We are told that an accidental matter would not come under the criminal law, but what is the dividing line between accident and recklessness? Recklessness is a very broad term. I am not sure that I know what it might mean to a court. It might mean one thing to one court and another to another court.
It is said that it would be a lawful defence to show that there was an erroneous belief in one's right to take action, but how would that apply to recklessness? I am not dear about it. The term is far too wide to allow such a substantial maximum sentence. Should not this be a separate offence with a lower maximum sentence?
Thirdly, on the question of compensation, there is no maximum. Many of us will welcome the fact that compensation provisions will be more widely applied by the courts. However, that raises a difficulty. When a man has possession of all the family assets he could receive a very long prison sentence and also have compensation awarded against him, so that innocent persons could have their possessions taken from them because of his action. If the power of compensation

is to be extended, should we not at the same time consider extending the rights of a wife and, perhaps, other members of the family and dependants, in relation to property seized or sold for compensation? I hope that the Government will give consideration to this.

Mrs. Elaine Kellett: I agree entirely with my right hon. and learned Friend and my hon. Friend that the offence of arson should he retained.

Mr. Robert Cooke: I have a number of points to make. I straight away add my voice to the unanimity shown by the speakers on this side of the Committee in support of the right hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Sir Elwyn Jones), but I should like to see the term "arson" retained.
Arson is a special crime, at any rate in the eyes of most people, and we have already heard that there is a special type of person who is likely to commit such a crime. I should like to ask my hon. and learned Friend whether he is correct in saying that there is no offence in destroying one's own property. I think that that is what he said.
I hope that nothing in the Bill will take away from the discouragement to destroy property—even one's own—which is of national importance. We have spent much time legislating to protect historic buildings, and so on. It is certainly a crime wilfully to destroy historic buildings. It is a crime to burn one down, even if one is the owner, and nobody is injured in the process. I hope that nothing in the Bill will have any ill effect on what has already been decided on that matter.
My hon. and learned Friend might also care to contemplate the wider issue. Under existing law no crime would be committed if one went to an auction sale, bought the Radnor Velasquez with one's own money, and then went to some private place—even one that could be viewed from a public place—and deliberately destroyed the painting and announced that one was going to do it. The law could not prevent the carrying out of that threat.
Clause 5 contains the phrase, "without lawful excuse". Recently, a lady visitor from overseas panicked when she found


herself shut up in an historic church. Thinking herself locked in she endeavoured to draw attention to her supposed plight, and stuck her umbrella through a window. If proceedings had been brought against her she might have pleaded that she had a lawful excuse, because she was locked in the church, but she was a stupid and ignorant woman and there could have been no reasonable excuse for any normal person to think that she had been locked in. However, she thought she was.

Sir Elwyn Jones: Perhaps she was a refugee from the Tory Party conference!

Mr. Cooke: She poked her umbrella through a window, which, although recently repaired, could not be described as of any historic interest. But she might have poked her umbrella, or thrown her heavy handbag, through a window and said that she did it justifiably. I hope that the Bill will cover such points.
Occasions could arise when it appeared that someone's life was in danger, and for some reason it might be necessary to break into a building. The police or the fire brigade might be involved, and in their wild enthusiasm they might do irreparable damage to a building of historic importance. Surely we should indicate to such people that they should take reasonable care in obtaining entry and do it in such a way as not to cause irreparable damage. There is no doubt that to walk straight up to a building and smash one's way in through the most prominent entrance may not be the best way of getting in. I hope that that point will be covered.
Recently Westminster Hall has been treated for the death watch beetle by a revolutionary process—the letting off of gas canisters containing a substance called. I believe, Gammexane, obtainable from I.C.I., which gives the impression that the building is on fire, because smoke pours out of the generators from all the cracks and crevices in the roof. Someone passing a building being treated in this way might think the building was on fire, and might even think that someone was trapped inside and do irreparable damage to the building.
The Committee may regard that as farfetched, but I am sure that it could happen, indeed, when I was treating

some outbuildings at home I had all the neighbours rushing across the road to tell me that my buildings were on fire and that I should rescue anyone inside—to which I replied that it was quite all right; they were only beetles and they could look after themselves.
My last point arises on the Interpretation Clause. Under the Bill it is not an offence to go into a field and pick mushrooms. I am sure that that is right. We have all gone into fields and picked mushrooms at various times, otherwise they would have gone rotten, and we do not want to come down on the picking of wild flowers. But the digging up of wild flowers—sometimes rare flowers—should certainly be a culpable offence. This may not be the right Bill in which to do it, but I leave my hon. and learned Friend with the thought that when another one of my hon. Friends and I tried to introduce a Bill making it an offence to dig up wild flowers it did not get very far in the House. There is a world of difference between digging up and just picking flowers.
The sad thing about the digging up process is that flowers are invariably dug up and transplanted into places where they will not grow, so that the plant is lost not only to its original habitat but for good, because it dies where it is finally planted.
Those are just a few thoughts which occur to a layman in what is obviously mainly a field for lawyers. Lest anyone should think that I was suitable material for the Committee stage of the Bill, I make it quite clear that I do not think that I am.
I have two other points. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Havers) referred to the difficulty of deciding whether damage was purely accidental, or was blameworthy. If one is driving a car rather too fast along a wet road, and one skids and knocks down a building belonging to someone else, should we not try to tackle that problem?
Coming back to the question of buildings of merit, I remember the case of a famous and rather beautiful hotel in the city of Truro. Someone drove a lorry far too fast down the hill into the town and it went into the building and did so much damage that it collapsed. The building has never been rebuilt. It has been lost


to the citizens of Truro for ever, first because of what was seen to be a blameworthy act. Whether blame was attached to the person who was driving that lorry—and who ought to have known better—I am not sure.
I know of several other cases where important features of buildings have been wiped off by passing vehicles travelling too fast. I very much doubt whether, in many cases, blame was attached to the people concerned. I know of many cases where features that have been wiped off have never been replaced. With those thoughts I conclude my remarks.

Mr. Jeffrey Thomas: I, too, was somewhat startled to hear that the Minister regarded this Measure, to some extent at any rate, as the redemption of an election pledge. I am sure that that was a slip of the tongue. On the basis that it was, my hon. Friends and I cannot reach a consensus that the measure is to be welcomed.
I rise to make two short points. The first concerns the sentence of 10 years. In my view, that sentence would seem to be unnecessary. There is a danger of increasing the tariff unnecessarily with regard to too many criminal offences. Not only does it result in a debasement of the coinage; unless there is a real necessity for a long maximum sentence in matters of this kind it should be avoided at all costs. When this matter was debated in another place the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, made it plain that the Home Office had been unable to find any case in the five years covered by the Law Commision's report in which a sentence of more than seven years had been imposed for an offence of this kind.
In the hope that repetition is emphasis, I add my voice to the other voices raised in support of the retention of the word "arson". I endorse the comments made by the hon. and learned Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Havers) in this regard. Arson is a special offence, committed by offenders who, for the most part, are in a special category. In order that both the courts and the public should be left in no doubt as to the offence which is now known as arson, the word should be retained. No doubt that matter can be gone into in Committee

11.51 a.m.

Mr. Peter Fry: I welcome the Bill. If it will do anything to help reduce the appalling level of vandalism in this country it will have universal approbation. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Loveridge) on the question of the definition of "reckless". I have had experience in motor insurance, and I can see that we are opening a new field in this Clause.
How could one define "reckless" in respect of convictions for driving without due care and attention? Not only do we have the two laws in contradiction; at the moment, if no person is injured in a motor accident all that the two parties concerned have to do is to exchange names and addresses and the names of their respective insurance companies—and no offence is committed under the law. As I read the Bill an offence will be committed if one of the two drivers can be considered to have been driving recklessly.
I should be interested to hear the Minister's observations on that point, which raises the further question of compensation. Again from personal experience, I know that it is all very well to allow legal compensation. But it is a very difficult matter to obtain compensation from men of straw. I should like to see further attention being given by the Government to the question of the way in which aggrieved citizens could obtain rightful damages from people.

Mr. Cooke: My hon. Friend might care to know—from my own experience—that although one can be awarded compensation by the court the collection of that compensation appears to have nothing to do with the court. One has to collect oneself. In a recent case I was awarded £50 by a magistrates' court. I have so far received 12s. 6d. from one of the criminals. That was more than a year ago—and I have been told I am lucky.

Mr. Fry: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention. It reinforces my point. To my mind the success of this Bill in the eyes of many members of the public will lie in the extent to which they are able to obtain compensation and damages for what is done to them.

11.53 a.m.

Mr. Carlisle: With the leave of the Committee, I should like to reply to the


points that have been made. I start by expressing my great personal distress on the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke), who said that he did not feel that he was a suitable person for the Committee on the Bill. With his handbag-thowing, umbrella-swinging, pyromaniac-suffering foreign visitor, he would be a very suitable person for the Committee.

Sir Elwyn Jones: The lady concerned was a refugee from the Tory Party conference !

Mr. Carlisle: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has got it wrong. She ceased to be a refugee from the Tory Party conference when my hon. Friend described her as stupid and silly. Up to that stage it might have fitted. Nevertheless, I feel that we will miss my hon. Friend, even if, in view of some of the points that he has raised, the Committee stage may be somewhat shorter as a result of his absence.
The Bill does not make it an offence to damage or destroy property belonging to oneself, other than where it is done in such a way as to endanger someone else's life. There are provisions in other Acts of Parliament which prevent one damaging historic buildings. Those offences will continue; it is merely that there will not be an offence of criminal damage under this Measure.
I strongly suspect that the description he gave in relation to works of art was right. We are faced with a problem: if we believe in the individual right to possession, we must agree that an individual is entitled to do what he wants with that which he possesses, even if he merely buys something for the purpose of having the pleasure of destroying it. Rather than trying to legislate, in a blanket way through an offence of this kind, if we feel that there are particular things—works of art or historic buildings—which must be preserved for the good of the country, even against the desire of the owner, we can preserve them only by legislating to protect them.

Sir Elwyn Jones: What is the position about a Velasquez, or another famous work of art? Is there a classification which protects them? I suspect that there is not. I am rather disturbed about the

idea that a lunatic millionaire might buy and acquire a famous picture and, either in the privacy of his own madhouse or in some other place, destroy it. That gives rise to disturbing thoughts.

Mr. Cooke: My hon. and learned Friend might care to concentrate. Obviously we cannot pursue this point now. The law already recognises things such as the Velasquez as being of national significance. Special provisions are made regarding estate duty, and so on, which apply to such things. Buildings are already scheduled and protected in various ways. This would not be the right Bill in which to do it, but my hon. and learned Friend, with his Ministerial colleagues, might care to bear the point in mind for some future date.

Mr. Carlisle: I certainly will. The point that my hon. Friend has made is a very real one, as taken up by the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite. The answer to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's specific question is that at the moment no law prohibits the destruction of a work of art which belongs to the person who chooses to destroy it. There is specific legislation to deal with historic buildings, ancient monuments, and the protection of birds, but there is no specific legislation concerning historic works of art. We must provide legislation against destruction, rather than proceed through the general principle of the criminal law.
As for the man driving down the hill, in whichever of the attractive towns of Devon or Cornwall my hon. Friend was referring to, the answer is that damage created by that driving would be covered by an action in the civil courts for damages. In fact, the person would be likely to be committing the criminal offence of careless driving at the least, if he were travelling at a reckless speed down the hill and would be covered there, even if not by the Bill. He might argue that the damage caused was accidental, but if the accidental damage caused was as a result of carelessness in his method of driving he would be guilty of the criminal offence of careless driving.
With regard to the point raised about arson, I might have helped the Committee at the beginning. I was to a certain extent trailing my coat when I said that I would be interested to hear the Committee's views and comments on the


decision of the Law Commission that arson should not be retained as a separate offence. Every member of the Committee who has spoken has mentioned this, and I note that all have unanimously said that they would like to see arson retained as a separate offence.
I am grateful to the hon. Members for their views. I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr. Havers) who, with great clarity, put the case for the retention of arson as a separate offence. In the Home Office we shall consider very carefully what has been said, and shall come back to this in Standing Committee, perhaps as a decision taken by the Home Office. Presumably the matter will be pursued by members of that Committee.
My hon. Friends the Members for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry) and for Horn-church (Mr. Loveridge) raised the question of recklessness. I am not sure whether one would gain anything by creating another offence as my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch wished.

Mr. Loveridge: With a lower maximum sentence.

Mr. Carlisle: I shall say something about maximum sentence in a moment. One would still be faced with the difficulty that exists of correct definition of the word "reckless". My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough asked: did it cover careless driving? I should have thought that in anything that was reckless there would inevitably be a degree of negligence which would cover being careless.
The use of the word "reckless", as I understand it, in this Bill or in any Act, covers cases where the offender did not necessarily intend to cause the damage, but could not care less whether he caused it or not. That degree of lack of interest must amount to careless driving, in the way my hon. Friend mentioned, or to driving without due care and attention, or driving without reasonable consideration for other people.
This is something that we ought to look at in detail in Standing Committee, although I am not keen on the idea of dividing the offence, or dividing the penalty, as was mentioned by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Abertillery (Mr. Jeffrey Thomas) and other hon.

Members. If one is to have a broad band of offence, inevitably the maximum penalty prescribed for that offence is bound to be high.
The whole purpose of the Theft Act was to reduce what were all sorts of different types of offences to aspects of a similar form of conduct, but with widely differing sentences. What the Law Commission attempted to do was to bring the general criminal law to state a simply definable criminal offence, which could cover a multitude of degrees of seriousness, and then fix a penalty which was the appropriate maximum for the most serious type of crime of that kind which could be imagined, but below which the courts had complete discretion. I do not think that the fact that the penalty maximum is high means that the nature of the sentencing given by the courts is likely to increase, or that courts will be affected by the fact that the maximum is 10 years rather than seven years, when dealing with a normal case.

Sir Elwyn Jones: There must be limits to this principle, otherwise one could transform the criminal law by saying that all crimes should be penalised with a maximum penalty of 20 years or life, and leaving it to the courts to work out what it ought to be. That would not give the courts much guidance. One can think of one or two somewhat, I will not use the unkind description "Draconian courts" that one has appeared before where the temptation to err into exessive severity would become almost irresistible.

Mr. Carlisle: I accept that. There are some people who would argue for the approach that punishment should be at large on every type of offence. I agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that there must be limitation to the degree of discretion given to the courts, and that Parliament has a duty to fix an appropriate maximum for an offence. If one is to keep the law reasonably simple and go for a broad band of offences, one is bound to put that maximum fairly high for any group of offences.
An example mentioned by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wimbledon was the offence of causing death by dangerous driving: the fact that the penalty contains a maximum of


a substantial number of years imprisonment does not mean that the normal person convicted of the offence goes to prison. I do not think that there is the fear that by putting a maximum of ten years one will raise the tariff for cases of vandalism and malicious damage.
I think that covers most of the points that were made. There remains the point on compensation. I agree that the fact that one gives power to order the payment of compensation does not mean that it shall automatically follow that the courts will make orders for compensation, but to simplify the power to make orders for compensation means that they are likely to be used more readily than they have been in the past, where, for example, no order could be made until an application had been made on behalf of the person who had the loss, and this had to be made after the case was over, and so on.
I must reply to the chiding of the hon. Member for Abertillery and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for West Ham, South. I did not say for one moment that the implementation of the Bill was the carrying out of a Tory election pledge. What I said was that the widening of the powers of the courts to give compensation was welcome because it was consistent with the views expressed by the Widgery Committee, and were also welcome equally on this side in that they were consistent with the arguments we advanced at the time of the election for a clarification and a simplify-

THE FOLLOWING MEMBERS ATTENDED THE COMMITTEE:


Wallace, Mr George (Chairman)
Hastings, Mr.


Awdry, Mr.
Havers, Mr.


Bagier, Mr.
Jones, Sir Elwyn


Brocklebank-Fowler, Mr.
Kellett, Mrs.


Carlisle, Mr.
Loveridge, Mr.


Cooke, Mr. Robert
Speed, Mr.


Fry, Mr.
Tapsell, Mr.


Harper, Mr.
Thomas, Mr. Jeffrey

cation of the law in regard to the opportunity for the court to award compensation. I hope we shall find a suitable legislative occasion on which we can implement the other proposals in the Widgery report.

I have attempted to answer the various points raised by hon. Members on both sides, and I look forward to the Standing Committee stage, which will be constructive and reasonably brief.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,
That the CHAIRMAN do now report to the House that the Committee recommend that the Criminal Damage Bill [Lords] ought to be read a Second time.

Mr. Carlisle: Before we all leave, Mr. Wallace, I should like to take the opportunity to thank you for the very pleasant manner in which you have presided over our proceedings. The Bill has been so short, and your need to guide the Committee has been done so pleasantly and so quietly that I had not appreciated the great service you have provided.

Sir Elwyn Jones: May I concur with those observations, Mr. Wallace. When I was telling the sad story about the fountain, I made inquiry of the Chairman about the temperance habits of the occupant of the Chair. I was reassured that though they are sound, they are not unqualified.

Committee rose at nine minutes past Twelve o'clock.

Orders of the Day — Second Reading Committee

Wednesday, 19th May, 1971

[CAPTAIN WALTER ELLIOT in the Chair]


The Committee consisted of the following Members:


Captain Walter Elliot (Chairman)


Allason, Mr. James (Hemel Hempstead)
Holt, Miss Mary (Preston, North)


Cockeram, Mr. Eric (Bebington)
Jones, Mr. Arthur (Northants, South)


Davis, Mr. Clinton (Hackney Central)
Leadbitter, Mr. Ted (The Hartlepools)


Douglas-Mann, Mr. Bruce (Kensington, North)
Monks, Mrs. Connie (Chorley)



Paget, Mr. R. T. (Northampton)


Fell, Mr. Anthony (Yarmouth)
Silkin, Mr. S. C. (Dulwich)


Fisher, Mrs. Doris (Birmingham, Ladywood)
Silverman, Mr. Julius (Birmingham, Aston)


Fisher, Mr. Nigel (Surbiton)
Solicitor-General, The (Sir Geoffrey Howe)


Fitch, Mr. Alan (Wigan)



Gorst, Mr. John (Hendon, North)
Speed, Mr. Keith (Meriden)


Hay, Mr. John (Henley)
Wells, Mr. William (Walsall, North)



Mr. R. B. Sands, Committee Clerk.

Orders of the Day — LAND REGISTRATION AND LAND CHARGES BILL [Lords]

10.30 a.m.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Geoffrey Howe): I beg to move,
That if the proceedings on the Land Registration and Land Charges Bill [Lords] are not completed at this day's Sitting the Committee do meet on Wednesday next at half-past Ten o'clock.
I move the Motion from an abundance of caution, and not with an anxious expectation that it will be necessary.

Question put and agreed to.

10.31 a.m.

The Solicitor-General: I beg to move,
That the Chairman do now report to the House that the Committee recommend that the Land Registration and Land Charges Bill [Lords] ought to be read a Second time.
The object of the Bill is to bring about some improvements in the system of registration of land charges and land

registration to enable the Land Registry to provide a better service for those who use it. They include, directly or indirectly, at some time or another, most of the citizens of this country. The Bill does not propose any major changes in the system of land registration. Apart from what can be described as some narrow and technical tidying-up amendments to the existing law, the Bill contains two more substantial changes of more general interest.

First of all in Part I, which deals with registration of title, it sets out to simplify the task of the Chief Land Registrar in relation to what is becoming known as "souvenir" land. Members of the Committee may know that a trade has grown up in recent years in order to please tourists mainly from North America and sometimes to please those North Americans who still live over there, whereby


they are able to purchase a "square foot of Old England" for a comparatively modest sum. This trade has been developing over the last four or five years, and some enterprising people have been disposing of these square feet of old England for a price which seems to range between about 4 dollars and 10 dollars per square foot. I believe this is rather comparable with the trade which takes place in London smog, which one can buy in jars sometimes at North American airports.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: Unregistered!

The Solicitor-General: I hasten to add that it is unregistered London smog. On a modest scale, I suppose it helps the balance of payments and it gladdens the hearts of our continental cousins and enables them to obtain a splendidly medieval looking deed of title, which, no doubt, they display at some appropriate place in their homes.
One can see that this trade poses problems for the whole business of land registration. I have been told that one acre of prospective "souvenir" land produces 43,560 sq. ft. of old England to be disposed of on that scale. It is apparent that if land transactions of that kind have to be registered in the ordinary way an almost impossible burden is imposed upon the Land Registry. There are about 10 places where this kind of transaction is now taking place, and there are probably more than 1 million plots in the pipeline to be handled in this way. If the turnover is in relation to about one-tenth or one-eighth of that stock, so that 125,000 sq. ft. of old England are being disposed of across the Atlantic, that would involve about one and a half times the total turnover of the Land Registry in order to secure registration of these transactions. Obviously, that would threaten to swamp the normal service, so the view has been taken that it is unnecessary to provide the full kit of land registration for such transactions.
So Clause 4 of the Bill provides for such plots to be disposed of, in effect, by means of unregistered conveyances. It enables the Lord Chancellor to make rules allowing the Chief Land Registrar to designate pieces of land being disposed of in this way as subject to a souvenir land scheme and thereafter to make regu-

lations to exempt the Land Registry from the ordinary obligations which have to be fulfilled normally in relation to registered land. The kind of land to be dealt with in that way is defined in Clause 4(5):
'souvenir plot' means any piece of land which, being of inconsiderable size and little or no practical utility, is unlikely to be wanted in isolation except for the sake of pure ownership or for sentimental reasons or commemorative purposes.
Some of the advertisers of this property have suggested that, at a pinch, it might be used by energetic pole squatters able to post themselves within the confines of a square foot or two. I suppose it might also be used for the display of—

Mr. Julius Silverman: Presumably they will have to commit trespass in order to get to that plot?

The Solicitor-General: That point has been considered, because the conveyance normally carries with a right of way over the adjoining plots, so there is a kind of mutual easement towards the pole squatting station.
Subject to other restrictions of the Town and Country Planning Acts, I suppose it might also be used for the flying of the American flag. No doubt the technical trespass into somebody else's air space would be overlooked on a windy day.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: The Solicitor-General mentioned other planning restrictions, and I wonder whether one needs planning permission for pole squatting.

The Solicitor-General: I dare say I should refer to the hon. and learned Member for advice on that. I am not familiar with the exact provisions of the town and country planning legislation dealing with pole squatting. Anything I say should not be taken as constituting a Governmental licence to pole squat on souvenir land. I need notice of that question.
The Committee will appreciate that this is a practical, sensible reform to deal with one of these unforeseen but not disreputable trades which have developed in recent times.
The other provisions in Part I are modest. Clause 1 deals with the continued existence of the special insurance fund. Registered titles are guaranteed


through the registration system. The special insurance fund exists to meet any liabilities which might arise under that guarantee. It has only a very modest sum in it. It costs a certain amount of money to administer, and the proposal is that the special fund should be abolished and that liability to meet the guarantee should be transferred to public funds. So no difference takes place. The same guarantee and rights of indemnity will exist, but it will be more simply administered without the continued existence of the special fund. Questions arising about that will still be determined by the court, and that is the effect of Clause 2.
Clause 3 makes a small and beneficent change bringing existing law into line with existing practice which overlooks one legal snag. At present it is possible for a person to be denied indemnity when he claims it in respect of a registered land transaction if an act of his contributed to the loss in respect of which he claims indemnity, even if that act was wholly blameless. That is the effect of parallel case law. In practice, it is not implemented, but Clause 3 brings the law into line with sensible practice by saying that a person can only lose his claim for indemnity if he is in some way blameworthy by reason of fraud or lack of proper care on his part.

Mr. Silverman: Or by the person from whom he derives title?

The Solicitor-General: Yes, I think that is right. Previously any error, whether on his part or on the part of the person from whom he is obtaining title, would have disqualified him. The Clause merely reduces the quality of the disqualifying act.

Mr. Silverman: I wonder if the Solicitor-General would explain Clause 3(1). It says:
…where the applicant himself or, in certain circumstances, a person from whom he derives title…
Could he tell us something about these "certain circumstances" in which the innocent party, who may derive title from somebody who has behaved fraudulently or grossly negligently, can lose his indemnity?

The Solicitor-General: Perhaps I may have notice of that question. The point is that the law on that point is not being

changed. There are certain circumstances and, given time, I dare say I can produce an example which might not be wholly inaccurate. What is being done here is a benevolent change in the sense of saying that where, under existing law, an innocent fault, either of the claimant or of the person from whom he secured title, would disqualify him, the innocent fault shall not do so hereafter; it must be shown to be due to fraud or negligence. I shall certainly look at the point raised by the hon. Member and see if I can give him an explanation of it.

Mr. Bruce Douglas-Mann: In Section 83(5) of the. Land Registration Act, 1925, there is no reference to lack of proper care. Am I not correct in thinking that the main effect of this Amendment is, in fact, to deprive of the right to an indemnity a person who derives title who himself, or his predecessor in title, has been negligent, whereas at present he only loses indemnity if he, or his predecessor in title, has been fraudulent?

The Solicitor-General: The position, as I understand it, is that existing loss takes place where there has been an act, neglect or default. Not, I think, on these provisions, but on parallel provisions, it has been held that the phrase, "act, neglect or default" does not require any lack of proper care to be shown; so that the effect of this is to make clear that a mere omission or default without any lack of proper care is not any longer sufficient to deprive the claimant of indemnity. That is certainly the definition of it, and if the hon. Member wishes to draw my attention to some fault in drafting perhaps he can do so when he makes his own contribution to the debate, and we can have a look at it.
That, I think, is the last of the changes made by Part I with effect to land registration.
Part II makes certain changes in respect of the registration of land charges. A number of those are comparatively modest and technical. The principal change effected by Part II is that effected by Clauses 5 to 8 and Clause 11, namely, the change designed to allow the Registry of Land Charges to be computerised, so that it will become more efficient as a means of service, will be less expensive, and will require less staff to man it.
The basic changes made by Clause 5, in order to allow this computerisation, are that the index need no longer be kept in alphabetical order; it can be kept in a way more convenient to the computer to handle, because, for some reason which I cannot pretend to explain to the Committee, computers do not work alphabetically, or, even if they can work alphabetically, they prefer not to.
The second change is that the right, which now exists, of any individual to make a personal search of the index is being discontinued, because it is, plainly, not possible for the public actually to handle the tapes or other equipment on which the data are stored.
In place of that—and this is the third change—Clause 5 enables someone who wishes to make a search to request this, and to secure the result of such a search by telephone or by Telex; the result of the search being subsequently confirmed by a printed certificate confirming what the answer was. In addition, it facilitates the use of credit accounting in respect of inquiries and searches made in the Land Charges Registry.
The Committee may like to be assured that all the material information which is to be made available in this different way is already on the existing Register and is already available to anyone who chooses, under the existing system, to make a personal search at the Registry. Indeed, the present system, once the applicant has located the matter about which he is inquiring in the index, entitles him then to be given the relevant volume of the Register so that he can browse on either side of it while obtaining that information. The computerised system allows the same information to be made available to the same people by a different method at lower cost and at greater convenience.
Part VII of the 1925 Act, the relevant Part, as modified by Clause 5, is set out in Schedule 1 to the Bill. That is in accordance with Clause 11.
There are two other matters which I ought to mention in which changes are being made under the second Part of the Bill. First, Clause 9. At the moment, in a transaction when title is first being registered, it is necessary to register on the Register some charges—for example,

some restrictive covenants—twice; they have to be registered with the Land Charges Department, and then, quite shortly afterwards, when the title is first registered, they have to be registered on the Register of Title. Clause 9 eliminates the need in that kind of situation for the duality of registration, and makes some reduction in the cost and inconvenience of that.
Finally, Clause 14 repeals a number of obsolete, spent or out of date enactments.
The details of the Bill were described by my right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor as exceedingly complex, and I should endorse that. The intention and object of the exercise are clear. I hope that if any hon. Members wish to pose questions to me about details of it I may be given leave, if necessary, to answer them subsequently, because it is quite a difficult Measure to expound in detail. For those who are interested, as is perhaps right in a Second Reading Committee, the main object of the exercise, it is a moderately short and entirely beneficent Measure, which, I hope, will commend itself to the Committee.

10.48 a.m.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: The Committee will be grateful to the Solicitor-General for his clear explanation of the contents of the Bill. In so far as it may be difficult in some places for some of us to follow, I am quite sure that my hon. Friends the Members for Kensington, North (Mr. Douglas-Mann) and Birmingham, Aston (Mr. Julius Silverman), and the hon. Lady the Member for Preston, North (Miss Holt) in particular, will be able to enlighten both the Solicitor-General and myself, neither of whom, I think, is particularly experienced in this branch of the law.
In that context, I think the Solicitor-General rather softened the wording used by his noble Friend in another place. He said, not so much that the Bill is highly complex, but that it was almost entirely unintelligible. That is, perhaps, putting the matter unduly high, but undoubtedly it is not easy to follow, especially for those of us who are not particularly familiar with the kind of activity normally carried out in Lincoln's Inn.
The "souvenir plot" Clause seems a sensible provision. It might, perhaps, cause a certain amount of alarm and despondency to think that old England is being bought up square foot by square foot by those across the Atlantic. However, I imagine that if one made a calculation—and nobody could be more qualified to do that than the hon. Member for Northants, South (Mr. Arthur Jones)—it might be found that it would be a millennium or two before the whole of the United Kingdom would be owned by Americans.

Mr. Silverman: One million plots would occupy 20 acres.

Mr. Silkin: I am grateful and relieved to hear that. So long as the practice does not spread to the whole of the population of the world, perhaps we shall be relatively safe for some little time to come.
Undoubtedly the change in procedure will save a good deal of unnecessary administrative work in the Land Registry.

The Solicitor-General: Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman would like to consider my rough calculation founded upon a letter written to The Times. A gentleman who wrote on 3rd May, 1967, worked out that the entire United Kingdom sold at 4 dollars per square foot would realise £3,751,900,612,571. I would judge that that makes the total surface area about 900,000 million sq. ft., which is enough for him and his hon. Friends to be getting along with for some time yet.

Mr. Silkin: Of course, with the rate at which the value of money is falling under the present Government one does not know how long even that will last. However, I take the Solicitor-General's point. It only occurs to me that if there is a choice between the purchase of London smog and plots of land, it might perhaps be desirable for the Government to institute an advertising campaign in favour of London smog rather than plots of land.
The first Clause of the Bill is a sensible piece of nationalisation—perhaps not so cataclysmic as that of Rolls-Royce, but we welcome even the slightest move by the Government in favour of placing in public ownership those parts of the economy which are sensibly placed in

public ownership rather than adhering to some outworn dogma.
The provisions of the second Part of the Bill are sensible in the light of the modern methods, the use of computers, and so on, which will come into being. Certainly we welcome them.
I should like to make two or three points in relation to the details of the Bill. I take heed of what the Solicitor-General said. I can assure him that, following the practice which I adopted in a previous Second Reading Committee, I shall not ask him to give a reply immediately. These are points which he might, perhaps, consider later, before the Standing Committee deals with the details of the Bill.
The first is a purely technical question which was referred to in the other place by my noble and learned Friend Lord Gardiner, whose service in office as a law reformer the Bill continues in principle. My noble and learned Friend referred to what is apparently described as the "Keeling schedule." I had not myself heard that description before. The name is one known to me only in a connection which does not seem to have a great deal to do with Acts of Parliament. As I understand it, the effect of a Keeling schedule is to enable those who read it to see at a glance, because of the use of heavy print and otherwise, what is inserted into an existing Act as being amended by a current Bill, and where omission has been made.
However, as my noble and learned Friend pointed out, it is rather strange that, whereas what is put in is clearly seen by virtue of the heavy print—one can see this in Schedule 1 to this Bill—what is omitted is for some reason indicated by dots only. It has been suggested that that might be indicated by italics, but there seem to have been grave administrative objections to that course up to now, although I do not quite know what they are. If italics are impossible, one would have thought that some other method, underlining, square brackets, or something of that kind, might be a possibility. It would certainly help one's understanding of the effect of the amendments if one could see at a glance both the words omitted and those inserted. Very often the effect of omitting words from previous legislation may be just as


important as the effect of inserting words. I should be assisted if the Solicitor-General could give us some idea of whether consideration is being given to putting that anomaly right.
On the details of the Bill itself, the hon. and learned Gentleman referred to Clause 3 and to the change which, subject to the better judgment of my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, North (Mr. Douglas-Mann) who raised the point in a Question, I think is for the better, in that as I understand it it narrows the field in which a person may be held not to be able to gain compensation in the case where there is some blame attached to the applicant himself, due I think not so much to the provisions of the previous legislation as to the judicial interpretation of it.
What I am at the moment unable to follow is why lack of proper care, that is to say, negligence on the part of the applicant or person from whom he derives titles, should still, apparently, totally debar him from obtaining compensation. In other fields, what is known as contributory negligence acts as a source of reduction of compensation, but here we seem to be going back to the old law as a result of which lack of proper care is a total bar. I wonder whether that is necessary or equitable, and I should be happy if the Government thought further about it.
The other matter which relates to compensation arises in relation to Clause 5, which seeks to amend Section 17 of the Land Charges Act, 1925, in the manner set out in the Keeling Schedule. Here I am indebted to a member of the solicitors' branch of the profession who knows much more than I about these matters for drawing my attention to a point which, on the face of it, seems to be worthy of consideration.
Clause 5(7) introduces a change which is not concerned solely with adapting the mechanics of registering and searching for land charges in preparation for the records to be put on a computer, a change which could affect the substantive rights of those entitled to the benefit of land charges. By virtue of that Clause, a new subsection (5A) is to be added to Section 17 of the Land Charges Act, 1925. The effect of Section 17 is to deal

with official certificates of search, as the Solicitor-General reminded us, and the proposed new subsection would remove the liabilities of what is described as
any officer, clerk, or person employed in the registry
in the absence of liability for fraud, for any loss that might be suffered in one or other of two cases.
No point arises from that suffered by (b). That suffered by (a) concerns
any discrepancy between the search of which the result is set out in a certificate…and the search which, according to the particulars given in the relevant requisition, was desired by the person who made the requisition".
The wording there comes near to justifying the criticisms of the noble Lord, the Lord Chancellor.
As far as (a) is concerned, what emerges is that it is not the applicant for the search who is deprived of the right to compensation, but the person who is entitled to the benefit of a charge. The existing Section 17(3) provides that an official certificate of search
shall be conclusive, affirmatively or negatively, as the case may be
in favour of a purchaser or an intending purchaser of land. There is no change in that; nor do we suggest that there should be.
The effect of that may be described by an example. if Mr. A sells off part of the garden of his house to Mr. B as a building plot but, to preserve the value of the part retained, obtains from the purchaser a covenant that only one detached dwelling house will be built on the plot sold, he will normally register that covenant as a land charge and, assuming that that has been done, we assume further that Mr. B, the purchaser, sells to a development company which wants to put a block of flats on the plot, that is to say, to take action which would be a contravention of the covenant. If the development company asked for a search against Mr. B, and the official at the registry, dealing with the matter carelessly, omitted the entry of the restrictive covenant taken by Mr. A, the effect of Section 17(3), as I understand it, is that the development company will have claimed the land free of the covenant. As a result of that, Mr. A has lost the benefit of the covenant and he will have no means, other than the normal planning control, of preventing a block of flats


from being built upon the land sold by him.
Under the existing law, that is to say, at common law, not statute law, he has a right in those circumstances to sue the official registry for damages, but the effect of the new subsection (5A) will be that, if its meaning is as believed, the right to sue the registry official will be taken away unless the action of the official is fraud. That, of course, depends upon the meaning the wording which I referred to, which is not by any means crystal clear. There seems to be considerable doubt whether, in those circumstances, the person whose charge has been overlooked will be left without a remedy against anyone. If it is right that the negligent official cannot be sued, presumably the only possible defendant is the Chief Land Registrar, because the Crown Proceedings Act makes it impossible to sue the Crown in those circumstances. But there is some doubt as to whether the Chief Land Registrar would be held liable.
The Court of Appeal has recently considered the liabilities imposed on registrars—admittedly in the context of local land registrars, but the principles would seem to he the same—under this Section in the case of the Ministry of Housing against Sharp, which was decided last year. In that case it was decided that the Registrar was not a guarantor of the accuracy of certificates issued in his registry; that is to say, his duty is one of reasonable care at the most, and not an absolute duty.
It was suggested by Lord Justice Salmon that a situation might arise in which computers produced inaccurate certificates without negligence on the part of anybody. But the matter goes further even than that, because there is some doubt as to whether the Registrar may not fall within the wording of the Amendment contained in the new subsection (5A). The Court of Appeal, or one of the learned Lord Justices, thought that the word "officer" in the existing section, which is subsection (4) of Section 17, included the Registrar, who is, I gather, of a different view, but if the first view is right, the Registrar would fall among those people whose acts are protected, so that their personal liability is removed.
If that is right, as a result of this provision, provided that its interpretation

is wide enough to cover the kind of case that I have suggested, there would appear to be nobody liable. However, even if the Registrar is not an "officer", so that he would remain liable in relation to negligence, there would be no absolute liability. As I understand it, following the existing Law, it seems to me that there is a case for considering whether in those circumstances there ought not to be an absolute liability upon the Registrar, which would in effect be a liability upon the public purse, where a person, through no fault of his own, has been prejudiced as a result of some error, whether it be the unaccountable error of the computer, for which nobody can be blamed, or as a result of attachable blame under the rules of negligence to some person in the Registry.
If we are setting up this new mechanised, computerised system, there is a strong case for saying that all who suffer damage as a result of error of any kind arising from the activities of the computer ought to be fully compensated by the public purse as a result of that error. I hope that the Solicitor-General will recognise that that is a matter of considerable substance and importance, and that it will be carefully considered between now and the Committee stage. At that stage—I do not ask for an answer immediately—I hope that we will have either an Amendment to put the matter right, or else some very convincing explanation of why the Bill in its present form ought to be accepted.
Subject to those doubts and queries, rather than criticisms, the Opposition warmly welcome the Bill, which continues the path of law reform upon which my noble Friend had placed the vehicle of State, and upon which it was proceeding so rapidly and so smoothly up to 18th June, last.

11.14 a.m.

Mr. Douglas-Mann: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) overestimates my knowledge of conveyancing, and I hope that my colleagues will be able to supplement it.
I certainly endorse what he said about Clause 3. If title has been derived from somebody whose solicitor was negligent, otherwise than by a disposition for valuable consideration, if that title has been registered, surely the Registry ought


to be at least equally guilty with the negligent solicitor who accepted the title in the first place—whether or not the property has been passing down from generation to generation without having acquired a possessor in title.
I have had one case in which a mother died leaving her four cottages at one place to one son and her four cottages at another place to another son. The solicitors acting for the estate got them muddled up, and there was subsequently a deed of gift, and it was a difficult matter to unscramble. If that defect had been accepted by the Registry, notwithstanding that there had been negligence by the predecessors of title and no disposition for value, the Land Registry should be liable to provide an indemnity, or at least a partial indemnity.
I also agree with my hon. and learned Friend about the liability of the Land Charges Registry in the event of its negligence. There is no provision, so far as I can see, in the Land Charges Act, 1925, for an indemnity fund, such as is set up in the Land Registration Act, and if the officials of the Registry are no longer to be liable in damages, who is liable for acts of negligence?
Finally, I should like to express my regret that when these changes are being made, we are not at the same time amalgamating the Registers at the Land Registry and the Land Charges Registry. Section 59 of the Land Registration Act, 1925, provides that various land charges which would be registered under the Land Charges Act, if the land is unregistered, can be protected in the case of registered land only by a notice, caution, or other prescribed entry.
If one has a judgment against somebody who owns land, or, more important, if a pending action, it is easy to register this pending action at the Land Charges Registry, but, unless one knows precisely what land he owns, and only a personal search of the index map will disclose whether he owns registered land, there is no way in which one can, by registration, give notice of a pending action in the case of registered land, unless one knows precisely what land the defendant owns. An amalgamation of these Registers, now that we are going on to computerisation, should not be too difficult, and it would

ensure that registration in the one place was notified to people searching on the other.

Mr. Silkin: Has my hon. Friend observed that my noble Friend, Lord Gardiner, referred to this in another place and said that it was probable that registration of titles to land could never be done by computer. He went on to say that there were various reasons for that, although he did not spell out what they were, and I am not myself aware of them Perhaps, in due course, the Solicitor-General will be able to explain that.

Mr. Douglas-Mann: I can see that it is likely to be difficult to register land by computer, because the computer is not easily geared to registering contours, shapes and boundaries, but the computer can register charges against registered proprietors. I cannot see that that is an impossible task for a computer.
One cannot be safe when buying land from a company, because a charge created by a company must be registered with the company's registry within 21 days, and it becomes effective as from the date when it is made. Although, in theory, one is advised when one is taught conveyancing to do one's company registry search on the way to completion, one still has the risk that the charge is created within 21 days prior to the date of completion and one is fixed with it.
I can see no fundamental reason why companies should not be required to register prospective mortgages so as to ensure that a purchaser from the company will be protected by his priority notice or some provision whereby one can lodge a search. This should be at the Land Charges Registry; one should not have to make a multiplicity of searches. One can lodge a priority notice at the Land Charges Registry which will be registered at the company's registry if it is impracticable to amalgamate the two registers.
These are matters of omission which I regret—that we cannot get the register of charges at least on to one register instead of on to three registers as at present. Subject to those comments, I entirely endorse the views expressed by my hon. and learned Friend and welcome the Bill.

11.20 a.m.

Mr. Silverman: Like my hon. Friends, I welcome this modest Bill. Its effect is beneficient. Like my colleagues, I am not a practitioner in this branch of the law, and I want to pose one or two questions rather than express opinions. The Solicitor-General may be able to deal with these points now, or prefer to leave them until a later stage.
I have already asked a question about the words "in certain circumstances" in Clause 3. What are the circumstances in which a person deriving a title from somebody else and who is himself entirely innocent loses protection and loses indemnity in case of fraud, or the lack of care by the original applicant? It may be that this matter was dealt with in paragraph (a):
Where the applicant or a person from whom he derives title (otherwise than under a disposition for valuable consideration which is registered or protected on the register).
Are these the only circumstances in which the innocent person who derives title from the person who committed the fraud, or who has been guilty of insufficient care, is deprived of indemnity? If so, we ought to say so, rather than use the words "in certain circumstances". There is no reason why that should not be specifically spelt out.
If it is not so, we ought to know at some stage what are the other circumstances in which a person can be deprived of his right to indemnity. The Committee would probably like further information as to what sort of circumstances would constitute lack of proper care which would deprive an applicant or his successors from indemnity.

11.22 a.m.

The Solicitor-General: By leave of the Committee I begin by rejecting as without foundation the suggestion by the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) that the change embodied in Clause 1 represents an acceptance of the policy of nationalisation—far from it. The insurance fund is already a statutory fund in the public sector and backed by the Consolidated Fund. All that is happening is that as part of the Government's wide-ranging review of the machinery of government, this small corner of that machinery is being rationalised and modernised, as one

would expect from the present Government. I reject entirely the somewhat narrow attempt by the hon. and learned Member to make a political point out of the Bill.
The hon. Member for Kensington, North (Mr. Douglas-Mann) asked a number of questions—which and I make no complaint—went outside the scope of the Bill. It plainly provides a useful occasion for some of those questions to be raised, because the Bill is concerned only with the comparatively modest range of changes that it sets out to achieve.
The hon. Member asked whether there was not a case for amalgamation of the two registers in whole or in part. He may have overlooked the fact that that subject was considered by the Law Commission in Report No. 18, and a solution of that kind was rejected as not being feasible. The whole question of registration of title is, however, still under consideration by the Law Commission, and, no doubt, his other observations will be borne in mind, together with the suggestions of other hon. Members.
As hon. Members have said, there are substantial practical difficulties about computerisation of the other half of the Land Registry, registration of titles. Something of the kind has been attempted in Scandinavia; the costs of the programme are escalating dramatically and it is not necessarily fulfilling its objectives. However, I can say that a study of the feasibility of computerising some aspects of the registration of title is now being set in hand. It looks as though this is something with which we should make haste slowly, perhaps profiting by the mistakes of others.
I can take the knowledge of the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich about the Keeling Schedule a litte further. Mr. Keeling suggested the adoption of Keeling schedules in 1938, but who Mr. Keeling was I am not certain, except that he seems to have been a sensible man.
The idea of setting out a Schedule not only containing a Clause as amended, but also containing the words omitted, so as to enable Parliamentarians and others to see exactly what they are doing, was canvassed by the noble lord, Lord Gardiner in another place. Since then it has been closely examined by my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor and


it has occurred to me, in this and other contexts, to consider whether one could not make the Keeling schedule more intelligible by adoption of the device which he suggested.
Both the Lord Chancellor and I have been somewhat impressed by the arguments against doing what is suggested. One can see the way this is done in other Legislatures, and, if the phrase may be forgiven, one has a schedule setting out in three different types of print, or in square brackets. or without square brackets, that which was, that which is and that which is to be. It begins to look like a dog's breakfast and becomes very difficult to understand. I have seen some examples from other Legislatures. The use of italics is precluded by the fact that they mean something else. Resolutions and Clauses dealing with matters of finance are printed in that way, and if one wanted a Bill to reach the Statute Book in that form, so that those who had to work with it thereafter could see what is and what will be, and not what was, it would be necessary to provide some machinery for repealing the words which were on their way out when the Bill had its Third Reading in the second of the two Houses. That would involve a great deal of work in drafting the necessary repeal provisions. The practical difficulties might be overcome, but a document set out in that way would be unattractive and might make it less useful than appears at first sight.
I am still attracted by an alternative, namely, setting out the explanatory notes on facing pages in relation to Clauses, as is done in the annexes to Law Commission Reports. It is done in other Measures, too, but that is a different question. The point has been looked at closely since it arose in another place.
On Clause 3, the hon. Member for Kensington, North and the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich raised the question whether it is right for lack of care to be an absolute bar to indemnity. It has been so since about 1897, which may be a good reason for saying that it should be looked at. The point will be looked at by the Law Commission in the context of its general review.

Mr. Douglas-Mann: The Solicitor-General may be incorrect in saying that it has been so since 1897. Section 83(5) of the Land Registration Act, 1925, excluded entitlement to indemnity where the applicant or his predecessor in title had been guilty of fraud. Negligence was introduced in the 1966 Act.

The Solicitor-General: For the benefit of those hon. Members who may be interested in the statutory history, the words were in in 1897. They went out in 1925, and came back again in 1966. Quite why, I cannot explain.
The effect of Clause 3 is to make the law more benevolent than it has been. The points raised by hon. Members will be looked at.
The hon. and learned Member for Dulwich and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Aston (Mr. Julius Silverman) raised a point on Clause 5(7). The effect of that Clause is not intended to be as wide as the wording may suggest. It is not intended to make any claims as to general liability or non-liability of the Registry or its officials for any error. That arises not by virtue of any statutory guarantee, but as a matter of common law liability. The question of whether that fundamental concept can be changed can be looked at in the wider review. No change in the fundamental concept is here embodied.
Hon. Members who look at Clause 5 may find this difficult to believe, but subsection (7) says that if one asks a computer a question on the telephone, and one gets back from the computer a printed out certificate telling one the answer to the question, it is one's own responsibility to ensure that the computer has asked the question one asked it to answer. That is all. There is no other variation. It may turn out that the computer misunderstood, or, more probably, that the human being who fed the computer the question gave it the wrong question. One must be sure that one gets the answer to the question one originally put in.

Mr. Silverman: There is nothing about computers.

The Solicitor-General: No, but a certificate issued under the subsection would be printed out by the computer, recording the information in answer to the question put to it. As I understand it, one would telephone to the Registry and make


an inquiry about a given piece of land or a given charge; someone there would feed it in to the computer; the computer would produce a visual answer to be given over the telephone there and then; that would be recorded in the certificate. The certificate is the final evidence of what is in the Register. The questioner would have to check that the certificate issued under the subsection answered the question which had been put—that the search of which the result is set out in the certificate is the same as the
search which, according to the particulars given in the relevant requisition was desired".

Mr. Silverman: Suppose one asked the right question but still had the wrong answer? Is there any indemnity, or any liability, on the questioner?

The Solicitor-General: Suppose one asked the right question, one must satisfy oneself that the right question was taken on the board. When the certificate comes back, setting out the questions one asked and the answers obtained, one must make sure that the question put was the question fed into the machine. If the question was the question one wanted put, and through some error or negligence at the Registry one were given the wrong answer, a variety of possible situations could apply. I would rather answer the hon. Member in correspondence. I can think of the answers to some possibilities, but not all. Up to this point, we are clear that the Clause is making only a modest change in the law. The questioner must be sure that the right question was fed in and that the answer was given to the right question.

Mr. Douglas-Mann: Perhaps the Solicitor-General could have another look at this before we get to the Standing Committee. One may lodge a search against a name and a piece of land, and get back the answer that there are no subsisting entries. There is no way in which to check an answer "no subsisting entries" to see whether that relates to the right person or the right piece of land.

The Solicitor-General: One can check—and this is the point—that the certificate which records the answer "no subsisting

entries" also records that it asked the question one wanted it to ask in relation to a particular piece of land or a particular name. That is what it is intended to say. It is what it says. It can be looked at later.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: The Solicitor-General may now have answered what I intended to put to him. I accept that that was the intention of the Government in adopting this form of words, and the intention of the draftsmen in trying to give effect to that. The words themselves are not crystal clear, and other interpretations are possible. My correspondent who gave rise to the query on this took the view that a different interpretation is conceivable. He is a practising solicitor with great experience in these matters. If it is so, I hope the Solicitor-General will look at the wording and make absolutely sure that no court can construe it as having other than the meaning intended.

The Solicitor-General: That will certainly be done. Perhaps the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich can let me have his correspondence.
We seem to have reached Standing Committee rather than Second Reading Committee points, and I have no wish to take up any more of the time of the Committee. I commend the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,
That the Chairman do now report to the House that the Committee recommend that the Law Registration and Land Charges Bill [Lords] ought to be read a Second time.

The Solicitor-General: Permit me to express to you, Captain Elliot, the thanks of the Committee for presiding over the proceedings, which have not taken too long, and for seeing that we behaved ourselves with reasonable order.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: On behalf of the Opposition I associate myself with that, Captain Elliot, and hope that you have not been unduly troubled by the morning's work.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Committee rose at twenty-two minutes to Twelve o'clock.

THE FOLLOWING MEMBERS ATTENDED THE COMMITTEE:


Elliot, Captain W. (Chairman)
Jones, Mr. Arthur


Allason, Mr.
Leadbitter, Mr.


Douglas-Mann, Mr.
Monks, Mrs.


Fell, Mr.
Silkin, Mr. S. C.


Fisher, Mr. Nigel
Silverman, Mr. Julius


Fitch, Mr.
Solicitor-General, The


Gorst, Mr.
Speed, Mr.


Holt, Miss
Wells, Mr. William